Whiskey Sour (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Series #1) by J. A. Konrath, Joe Konrath

From the Publisher

Lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels is having a bad week. Her live-in boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, chronic insomnia has maxed out her credit cards with late-night home shopping purchases, and a frightening killer who calls himself "The Gingerbread Man" is dumping mutilated bodies in her district.

Between avoiding the FBI and their moronic profiling computer, joining a dating service, mixing it up with street thugs, and parrying the advances of an uncouth PI, Jack and her binge-eating partner Herb must catch the maniac before he kills again...and Jack is next on his murder list.

Whiskey Sour is full of laugh-out-loud humor and edge-of-your-seat suspense, and it introduces a fun, fully drawn heroine in the grand tradition of Kinsey Millhone, Stephanie Plum, and Kay Scarpetta.

Publishers Weekly

Rough dialogue, intricate plotting and cascading suspense mark British author Lawrence's excellent debut, in which four bodies are found sitting almost casually in a circle in a nondescript London flat: three are suicides, the fourth is stabbed through the heart. Det. Sgt. Stella Mooney, an intense, troubled and dogged investigator, learns that small-time crook Jimmy Stone, the murder victim, was an active trader in "murderabilia," such as a scene-of-crime photo of the Manson killings and O.J. Simpson's autograph. Jimmy's story is one of many subplots that lend depth to this absorbing police procedural. The trail leads Stella into contact with a crime family and into delicate turf wars and accommodations within her own organization as well as with other agencies whose aims are not always the same. The enslavement and prostitution of East European women is yet another element the author uses to telling effect, as is the crisis in Stella's relations with her housemate provoked by a persistent journalist. Lawrence smoothly shifts focus, allowing the reader to follow Stella, a prostitute, the journalist and a chillingly efficient and ruthless Serbian assassin, among other distinctive characters. Readers are sure to want to see more of the memorable Stella in further adventures. Agent, Jonathan Clowes Ltd. (May 27) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"Put Donald Westlake in a blender with a jigger of James Ellroy, mix in a dollop of Dorothy Parker, and you've got the hilarious, horrific world of Lieutenant Jacqueline 'Jack' Daniels." (Jay Bonansinga, author of The Sleep Police)

Library Journal

Lt. Jacqueline Daniels, a.k.a. Jack Daniels, along with her porcine partner Herb, sleuths her way through Konrath's tongue-in-cheek mystery. Jack and Herb are assigned to find a sadistic murderer called "The Gingerbread Man," who tortures his female victims before killing them. Each torture session is described in lengthy and graphic detail. Jack's dismal love life, her experience with a dating service, and two inept FBI agents add a comic subplot. Susie Breck's accomplished reading brings out Jack's matter-of-fact tone and dry personality; Dick Hill's narration is clear and comprehensible. Recommended for adult fiction collections for patrons who can stomach the gory details of female victimization.-Ilka Gordon, Medical Lib., Fairview General Hosp., Cleveland Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A rapid-fire debut thriller that dares to ask who'll come out on top: Jack Daniels or the Gingerbread Man?The stakes aren't as obvious as they sound. The Gingerbread Man is a psychopathic serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, tortures, tortures, and kills selected young women from the Chicago streets, and Jack (nee Jacqueline) Daniels is the Violent Crimes lieutenant who's caught the case but can't catch the perp. On the contrary: The killer announces his attachment to the lead officer by going after her, leaving doctored chocolates in her car, breaking into her apartment, and taunting her with the obligatory phone messages. While she's trying to turn the tables on him, Jack is crossing swords with a pair of FBI clones, cracking jokes with her partner about how she can't even hang on to her live-in boyfriend, applying to a dating service, and watching as the Gingerbread Man gives the nice accountant she's been set up with the shock of his life before snatching his next victim and tying her up in his basement. Can Jack shake her bad luck and bring in her quarry before he kills her and blows up half the Windy City?Plotting, personalities, and gallows humor are all standard-issue. Konrath's most distinctive contribution to the serial-killer genre, apart from seasoning it with a savvy heroine who just can't keep a man, is some seriously gruesome sadism that should keep the kiddies away. Author tour. Agent: Jane Dystel

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