HARDCOVER EDITION
What connects a gay man, a murdered stripper, and a hazardous fertilizer plant?
When international journalist, Paige Harrington, is told her life-long friend, Wally Adams, the leading opponent of the plant, has committed suicide, she suspects murder.
A friend gives her one of Wally's personal files containing a dozen news clippings about a murdered stripper known as Peppermint and an oblique reference to ownership of the fertilizer plant, but nothing factually linking Wally, Peppermint, and the fertilizer plant.
But she knows Wally and she knows the file is so accident. To find the connection, she goes to work as a stripper and begins to uncover disturbing information.
Friends disappear; she is betrayed, and her life is in danger. Someone is risking everything to keep her from the truth.
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People Reviewed This Item
By R.E Jewiss
Oct 15, 2009
This exciting story was, as far as I could tell from the preview - well written, flawlessly exectuted and excitingly paced. I was drawn in my the whole story and only sorry that the preview ended so soon.
"Barely Dead, a Paige Harrington Mystery" A review by Tami Brady, Sept., 2006 When international freelance journalist, Paige Harrington, receives a phone call from her father informing her of the suicide of her beloved best friend, Wally Adams, her highly tuned instincts scream foul play. She flies back to her hometown, High River, near Calgary, Alberta Canada, and finds that she doesn’t need to travel the world to uncover corruption and deceit. As she steps into the last days of Wally’s life, she discovers his protests against the building of a multi-million dollar fertilizer plant left him with many enemies, and that his death meant the resurrection of the toxic deal. What she can’t figure out is why Wally drew a connection between the fertilizer plant, “Project 321”, and a murdered stripper named Peppermint. To uncover the truth, Paige decides it’s time to utilize her beauty and brains, and becomes a stripper at The Garter, the same club as the murdered woman. In doing... More > so, she enters a world where everyone has a secret, and everything around her is more complex than she ever imagined. The novel moves at a steady pace, painting each scene with concise detail. The chapters are snapshot short, which in the beginning of the story helps to keep plot moving, but as the story progresses, tends to interrupt the flow as many chapters containing the same scene could be blended into one for a smoother progression. The side mysteries that branch off the larger conflict of Project 321 help to keep tension in the plot since the grander mystery of whose behind it all is revealed fairly early to the reader. The women of The Garter are not only realistic, but very sympathetic in the lives they’ve led. Where Barely Dead truly shines is on the well developed character of Paige Harrington whose confidence and determination creates a strong female heroine. The narrative is mostly in first person from Paiges’s perspective, and author McLeod skillfully gives her a voice that is easy to connect with and comfortable. With the cover of Barely Dead reading that it is A Paige Harrington Mystery, it leaves hope that she will appear to lead in another mystery novel.< Less
