Flamethrower

by Maggie Estep

Book Overview

In the newest Ruby Murphy mystery, New York's inadvertent sleuth discovers more about her shrink than she could have ever imagined as the doctor turns the tables, enlisting her help in the hunt for a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400082730
• ISBN13: 9781400082735
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Another challenge for Ruby

If you love the low keyed style of New York you'll love reading Estep's books about a "hot walker" called Ruby Murphy. To me, her sleuthing is secondary to great descriptions of New York, race tracks and biking all over Coney Island on the shoreline. Can't wait for the next challenge.

The APA might not approve

Ruby Murphy is an ex-alcoholic horse-lover, dog-lover and cat-lover, who keeps an "emergency can of tuna" for any hungry strays she might encounter and gets involved in unstable relationships with unstable men (mostly). She suspects something is wrong when a human leg turns up in a fish tank in the waiting room of her psychiatrist, who looks at it (the leg) and says "it's my husband's" and tells her the therapy session is terminated. A slight plot problem was why Murphy (a "downwardly mobile" intermittent Coney Island side show worker) gets so involved in solving the mystery. At first it's because her psychiatrist asks for her help in finding her (the psychiatrist's) husband, and then because the husband gives her (Murphy) a thousand dollars to find his wife. Apart from stints in Manhattan and Pennsylvania, it's most set in the outermost outer boroughs of New York City, places I vaguely thought were in Nassau County, and dense with outer borough and horse-racing atmosphere. It's apparently third in a series. I'm just about to order the other two.

gritty and dark urban noir thriller

Ruby is seeing psychiatrist Dr. Judy Ray to try to come to terms with seeing her lover killed before her very eyes. During their appointment, Ruby goes to the bathroom and sees a foot in the fishtank. Judy sees it and identifies it as belonging to her estranged husband Tobias because of the birthmark on the calf of the leg. There is also a note that says "No Police. Just Wait." Judy refuses to call the police and ends her appointment with Ruby. Later, Judy asks her to find Tobias who might be at a second hideaway in the Rockaways; Ruby agrees to help her. She finds Tobias and learns that he orchestrated the plot but his partner got carried away and cut off his leg as proof that the man was in danger. Ruby leaves and finds that her live in lover wants to leave her because he received some pornographic pictures with her in it and her boss fires her because he believes she stole some money from him. When Tobias offers her $1000 to find Judy who disappeared she accepts because she need the money, not realizing her action will cause a tragedy. FLAMETHROWER is a gritty and dark urban noir thriller. The protagonist is an interesting individual who copes admirably when her life seems at its bleakest. Readers get an interesting tour of Brooklyn and somewhat Queens, the kind tourists don't see. There is only one villain in this story but that person comes as a surprise to readers who hardly notice the character as Maggie Estep knows how to tell a good story about the lost and lonely people who frequent Ruby's world. Harriet Klausner