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Harrison scores a knockout in Ruby Tuesday.
Ruby Tuesday: An Eddie Dancer Mystery
By Mike Harrison
(ECW Mystery, $28.95)
Three pages into Ruby Tuesday and you're ready to hire private Detective Eddie Dancer yourself: he's concise bordering on abrupt, honest -- or a damned convincing liar -- and a crisp, articulate storyteller, or at least the author, Mike Harrison, is.
Paul Miller, an advertising guru past his prime, has been downsized. Feeling it down to his gut, he steps forward to play knight-in-shining-armour when an abusive husband strikes his wife. First problem -- Miller is out of shape, past it. Second problem -- the husband is a muscle-bound boxer with a short temper. The third problem -- a security camera that records the ensuing confrontation and Miller is arrested for assault.
The first unworkable solution is Miller's offer to go three rounds and if he loses he pays $50,000 he doesn't have. The better solution --Miller's wife hires Eddie Dancer to stop the fight.
The writing is tight and the descriptive voice is powerful with dialogue punctuated with colourful retorts and tinged with sympathy.
The training scenes are particularly effective. There is a twist with the intensity of a ticking time-bomb that explodes into a dynamic conclusion.
As a reader I create visual images of the main characters. Descriptions play an obvious part, but the dialogue is the clincher and author Harrison scores a knockout in Ruby Tuesday.
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