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Melodie Johnson-Howe is the author of three novels, The Mother Shadow, nominated for an Edgar award; Beauty Dies; and City of Mirrors. After a career in movies and television, she quit acting to write novels. She lives in Santa Barbara with her husband.
Hold a Scorpion: A Diana Poole Thriller
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ISBN-13:
9781681771090
- Publisher: Pegasus Books
- Publication date: 10/25/2016
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 256
- Sales rank: 140,985
- File size: 635 KB
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The new Diana Poole crime thriller takes our amateur sleuth deep into Southern California's underworld to uncover the mystery of a diamond-encrusted scorpion—and the reason for the murders that follow in its wake.
Diana Poole’s last movie was a flop, but she earned enough money to fix up her Malibu house. One afternoon standing outside it, she sees a woman across the highway waving at her. Diana doesn’t recognize her. Still waving, the woman walks into the oncoming cars and is killed instantly. Why would anyone do that?
The next night, while still horrified by the accident, Diana is held at gunpoint by a man demanding the dead woman’s scorpion. What kind of scorpion? A live one? A brooch? A pendant? Diana searches the accident scene and finds a diamond-encrusted object in the shape of a scorpion. Breathless, she remembers her movie star mother showing it to her the last time she saw her alive.
Did the woman who was waving at her want her to see it? Was the woman’s death really an accident? Why did the gunman want the scorpion? Did her mother really die of natural causes? Could it have been murder?
With the diamond-encrusted object as her only clue, Diana goes on a heart-pounding journey determined to find answers. But asking a lot of questions can upset people. Especially the unpredictable killer who is stalking her.Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
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Publishers Weekly
08/29/2016Early in Edgar-finalist Howe’s atmospheric but addled sequel to 2013’s City of Mirrors, Hollywood actress Diana Poole spots a strange woman waving at her outside her Malibu bungalow, then walking into the speeding Pacific Coast Highway traffic, with fatal results. The following day, a witness to the tragedy tries to pump Diana for information at gunpoint, demanding to know the whereabouts of a scorpion. Since the only scorpion Diana knows is a diamond-encrusted vintage bracelet given by a mysterious admirer to her late mother, screen siren Nora Poole, and missing since Nora’s death the previous year, she can’t resist investigating further. Threats start coming from multiple quarters, including the pricey drug rehab facility from which it turns out the dead woman ran away. Diana and hunky PI Leo Heath, her now off-again love interest, must contend with motley players chasing the scorpion—a sly tip of the fedora to The Maltese Falcon?—as the fast-moving plot careens wildly toward a truly preposterous conclusion. Agent: Helen Zimmerman, Helen Zimmerman Literary Agency. (Oct.)
Michael Connelly
Deftly written and smart. On top of that, it is entertaining as hell.John Lescroart
Jet-propelled narrative drive, non-stop action, a dark and twisting plot, and a mega-tough yet sympathetic heroine make this one impossible to put down.Jan Burke
Howe writes beautifully.Booklist
Howe spins a brisk story with sharp dialogue.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Splendid. I adore Diana and this series with its southern California settings and its Hollywood insider vibe. Johnson Howe has a keen eye for the quirky in her characters without losing focus on their broader humanity. Her novels have always reminded me of the domestic crime stories of another southern California writer I admire, Ross Macdonald.Bookgasm
Diana Poole’s cool-headedness at making excellent deductions, based on observed behaviors and an actor’s bag of tricks, is enjoyable.New York Journal of Books
The latest in a line of perfectly crafted thrillers featuring Diana Poole as an actress turned amateur sleuth.Kirkus Reviews
2016-08-23An aging actress turns amateur investigator after word gets out that she knows more than she’s telling about the pedestrian victim of a car accident.In the wake of her actress mother’s death, Diana Poole, a fading star in her own right, is just trying to make it to her next audition. She’s too old and wise to get mixed up again in Hollywood, especially after breaking one of her own rules by getting involved with co-star Peter Bianchi on the set of her last film. Lesson learned, Diana is set to move on from Peter even if he can’t stop showing up at her door or calling her about her Twitter posts on their status. Out on the town with her friend and neighbor Ryan Johns, Diana sees a woman wave to them and move as if to approach them. But the woman, a stranger to them both, is run down before she reaches them. Diana and Ryan, both spooked by the death, react in very different ways. Ryan immerses himself in a new relationship with a woman Diana grows suspicious about when she sees the two of them, of all things, running together. Diana herself seeks closure through learning the identity of the woman. Her suspicion that she may not be the only one investigating is confirmed when she’s held at gunpoint by a man who insists she knows more than she does. Daunted yet determined, Diana also learns that investigator Leo Heath, her boyfriend who never was, is also looking into the case. Maybe Leo can convince Diana to protect herself from whatever it is the mystery woman was trying to tell her. Howe (City of Mirrors, 2013, etc.) sets her story in Tinseltown, but her characters lack the pop of classic Hollywood despite hints throughout at her ability to do more.