Peter Pan Must Die

 

Shirley J.               Adult Fiction Murder Mystery                    Assassins, Political Figures, Murder

Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon   448 pages

A prominent politician is assassinated while giving the eulogy at his own mother's funeral.  Whoa!  His wife is accused of committing the murder or if not that actual doing, she hired someone to do it.   Ex-NYPD to homicide cop, Dave Gurnery is brought in to investigate.  He turns up mob affiliations, a potential hit-man so short he could be a jockey, often mistaken for a woman and even a child due to his slight build, who is known as Peter Pan.   There are Greeks involved it is a hodge-podge of innocence, highly flawed police investigations and less than lily white investigators.  Gurney's path is filled with femme fatales, local constabulary who let him know up front he is no longer a cop and has no jurisdiction in the case nor the investigation and needs to BACK OFF!   A good story with lots of twists.   My complaint is that Verdon often tends to go too repetitively over some details and some diaglogue to the point you feel he is beating the proverbial dead dog to death.  Once the point is made it is only annoying to keep going over and over it.  Dialogue too at times is continued over and over like 2 children saying the same thing over and over in the backseat of the car on a roadtrip.   I have to think he is certainly paid by the word in these cases.  This book ended badly for me, too.   The story was pretty good except for the repetition and the outcome, but, would I recommend it?  There is the conundrom.   I am going to have to say no on this one.  It could be o.k. but the too wordy parts and the ending leaves me less than a fan of this title, though, I liked the main character.