Ross Thomas: Briarpatch (USA 2003)

From the Publisher:
A long-distance call from a Texas city on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister -- it's her birthday, too, they were born exactly ten years apart -- has died in a car bomb explosion. It's the chief of police calling -- Felicity Dill worked for him; she was a homicide detective. Dill is there that night, the beginning of his dogged search for her killer. What he finds is no surprise to him, because Benjamin Dill is never surprised at what awful things people will do -- but it's a real surprise to the reader. As Newsday said when the novel was first published, "One sure thing about Ross Thomas's novels: A reader won't get bored waiting for the action to start."

Ross Thomas: Briarpatch. Introduction by Lawrence Block. St. Martin's Griffin / Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN: 0312290314 (January, 2003), 336 p., $13.95.

Ross Thomas: Briarpatch (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
"Every new novel puts Thomas one notch higher on the must-read ratings. In the case of Briarpatch make that two notches." -- New York Daily News
When Detective Felicity Dill is blown to smithereens by a car bomb, her brother, Benjamin, a consultant to a Senate sub-committee, flies to their hometown for her funeral. But Benjamin Dill has two other missions in mind: to find Felicity's murderer and to get a much-needed deposition for his subcommittee.

A lot has changed in the burgeoning Sunbelt city of his youth, and Dill soon uncovers a vicious web of murder and political skullduggery that involves a motley array of friends and enemies from his own past and his sister's mysterious present: Dill's boyhood friend whe got rich as an arms dealer in Vietnam; a spaced-out electronics genius; severa mom-bers of the local police; a very beautiful lawyer; and an ex-CIA spook whom everybody in Washington wants to meet.

Sexy, streetwise, fast-paced, and funny, Briarpatch is the novel all Thomas fans-and everyone else-have been waiting for.

Ross Thomas: Briarpatch. Penguin Books, ISBN: 0140079904 (February, 1994), 370 p., $4.95.

Ross Thomas: Briarpatch (USA 1984)

From the Publisher:
A car bomb explodes in a white-orange flash, blowing a pretty young homicide detective to bits. A thousand miles away in Washington, Benjamin Dill learns of his sister's murder and returns to their hometown to find out who killed her and why.

Dill, a consultant to an obscure Senate investigating subcommittee, has another task to perform. He must obtain evidence from an old boyhood friend, Jake Spivey, about the illegal arms deals that have made Jake a multimillionaire, evidence that would send Jake's former partner, the sinister Clyde Brattle, to jail for the rest of his life. Are Spivey and Brattle somehow connected to his sister's death? Why was she leading a strange double life with her boss, Gene Colder, the dapper captain of the squad?

Searching for answers to these ques tions, Dill uncovers an unsavory nest of petty thieves, hired guns, crooked cops and corrupt politicians-i-all with motives to murder his sister, and each other. He meets the smart, bea jul Anna Maude Singe, who falls in love with him. And in one brief, brutally hot weekend, they are swept up in a vortex of intrigue, betrayal and violence, risking their lives as the mystery reaches its surprising and spellbinding climax.

Savage, sexy, sardonic, sophisticated Briarpatch is all these, and more. Crackling with swift action and sharp dialogue, stinging in its satirical view of a small Midwestern city and its eccentric inhabitants, the novel is a dazzling display of Ross Thomas's genius as a master storyteller.

Ross Thomas is the author of nineteen novels, the last of which, Missionary Stew, was hailed by Newsweek as a "four-star comic thriller". He has been a reporter, editor and public relations director for numerous publications, radio stations, national organizations and political candidates in the United States, Europe and Africa. Thomas lives with his wife in Malibu, California.

Ross Thomas: Briarpatch. A Novel. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0671530089 (November, 1984), 250 p., $15.95.