Dead Low Tide

by Jamie Katz

Book Overview

In the tradition of Robert B. Parker, here is a gritty debut mystery featuring a Boston attorney who uncovers corruption and murder in a deceptively quiet, working-class community near Cape Cod. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006109711X
• ISBN13: 9780061097119
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: HarperTorch
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Exciting, intelligent, can't wait for the next installment.

This book has everything: great characters, great story, great writing. The main character, Dan Kardon, is not only smart, courageous, tenacious, etc., he's also just plain fun. He has a self effacing quick wit that makes him someone you'd want to hang out with... novel, after novel. Also, the women are not mere props. They are intelligent, competent, human beings. The plot displays Katz's real knowledge of law, environmental issues, and the scary things that happen all around us - even in beautiful semirural New England. It's refreshing to read something by someone who knows how to write poetically and efficiently. Years of reading great books and writing great briefs really shows in this debut novel. I look forward to more of the same in upcoming books.

A classic mystery set in a beautiful part of the world

I recently spent time in the Cape Cod area, sailing on Buzzards Bay. Having read Dead Low Tide made my visit a much richer experience. I could relate to the names and the places and kept looking for piles of tires!! That this could happen means that the book is both well written and a classic whodunnit. When is the next one??

An exciting "who dunnit" with an international flavour

This novel is a well planned story in the traditional thriller/mystery format. The author manages to keep the reader in suspense throughout the book while painting an attractive picture of life in New England. The international links provide an extra dimension to the story, while opening up potential story lines for future books by this author. We look forward to the next book from this author.

Interesting characters, setting, in a debut mystery novel.

Actually, I give Jamie Katz's debut mystery novel Dead Low Tide 4½ stars out of 5,but only because no novelist should ever be forced to start his literary career at flood tide. But if Katz has other efforts like this in his Laserjet, that fifth half-star will soon be shining off the surf of coastal Massachusetts.Katz's amateur detective Dan Kardon is a Brookline lawyer who has detached himself from life. The tragic deaths of his kid sister and his fiancee have rendered him almost incapable of close social interaction, a dysthymia eased somewhat by his relationship with Anne and Frank and their nineteen-year-old ward Aaron Winters. While riding their bicycles through the Buzzards Bay town of Wettamesett, young Aaron challenges Kardon to keep up with him. The rush of adrenaline Kardon gets from the effort momentarily lifts him from his low-grade depression. And when Aaron leads him to a secret place, a used tire dump in the woods, Kardon describes it in terms of heightened observation: "A huge, undulating ridge of black doughnuts rose to fifty feet, and even higher in places, enough to have dwarfed a five-story building;.. The black pile shimmered just as I imagined Mount St. Helens had while its lava fields congealed... The edges and lines of the pile wavered, giving the pile the aspect of an hallucination. But that knowledge, and the heat of the day, didn't prevent me from shivering as I gazed at the dark contours in front of me." That sense of looming blackness comes to permeate the story, as Aaron is soon thereafter found shot to death not far from the tire pile. Kardon's dissatisfaction with his life reconfigures itself into a full-blown obsession to find Aaron's killer, a manic drive that not even two bashes on the head, a frame-up on drug charges, and a hired killer's attempt to reduce him to a pile of Cape Hatteras roadkill can halt. Along the way, Kardon meets and describes a fascinating cast of characters. Indeed, this leads to one of the few senses of dissatisfaction with the book: the peripheral characters, from a North Carolina female cop to Kardon's state trooper basketball pal, to his handicapped downstairs neighbor, a ten-year-old boy whose playful propensity for switching the locations of various household items winds up saving Kardon's life. Unlike the average mystery novel where each of these would typically be represented by a cardboard cutout, the problem here is that each is drawn too well - the fullness of their personalities makes the reader want more. This is especially true of the female characters, all of whom are endowed with both a realism and a sympathy that makes them intriguing. The same internal anguish that causes Kardon to pursue Aaron's killers so determinedly also leads to his fear of intimacy. Though always civil, he maintains an invisible shield of barbed witticisms and nebulous Shakespearian quotes. This tends to keep all those fascinating characters at ar

Debut of an exciting, gritty New England Mystery

Nineteen year old Aaron Winters has lived with his cousins ever since his parents died. He especially enjoys the summers at Wettamessett near Boston. Family friend attorney Dan Karden visits Aaron's guardians (Ann and Frank) often. Considering that Dan is a single hot shot while Ann and Frank are family oriented, the lasting of the friendship is a bit surprising. On his current visit, Dan is challenged to a bike race by Aaron, who ultimately takes the lawyer to the Houghton tire pile where an apparent illegal dumping is occurring. A few days later, Aaron dies in what is officially considered an accident. Ann and Frank have their doubts and ask Dan to investigate. Dan turns to his old buddy, former police chief Al Thompson for some advice. Soon Dan goes back to the Houghton tire pile seeking evidence that Aaron was murdered because of his spying on the illegal dumping. By doing this, Dan places his own life in jeopardy. DEAD LOW TIDE is an interesting amateur sleuth tale that brings to life the working class side of Cape Cod. Dan is a driven individual who does not know when to fold. The support players, especially Al, add the Yankee touch to the novel. The who-done-it is well designed even though the criminal element is obvious early one. This does not take away from Jamie Katz's debut novel, which will please fans of gritty New England tales.