Wages of Sin

by Penelope Williamson

Book Overview

The body of a local priest is discovered in an abandoned New Orleans warehouse. Damon Rourke, the hard-nosed detective introduced in Mortal Sins, attempts to catch a killer even as a shocking mystery... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446613835
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 498 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.3" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

I gave it "5 Start" but.....

I love Penelopy Williamsons writing style and her stories are exquisite. Her characters never disappoint. I will say, my only disappoints in this book were, one, that I would of either liked a "ending" or at least (even better) a third installment of this series. For days after I finished, I searched to see if there was a sequel, or at least one in works....I don't like endings that don't "end" the story. If you have not problem with that, I urge you to read Mortal Sins followed by Wages of Sin...exquisite stories. I will continue to purchase her work, and re read the previous novels of hers I have enjoyed so much...i.e. The Outside and The Passions of Emma, among others.

Excellent read!

If you haven't read these novels, I highly recommend them! Williamson does a wonderful job with the storyline, but for me her descriptions are what set her books apart. As another reviewer said, you can smell the bayous in Louisiana when you read her books.

Every weird thing imaginable!

A crucified priest with an astonishing secret! A teen-age girls' cult that idolizes a beautiful film star! A detective whose brother is a priest in the same parish as the crucified one. That same detective's lover is the object of the teen girls' obsession. Those girls being murdered. All this takes place in 1920's New Orleans. This is a great read and the end will blow your mind! I must now read "Mortal Sins." This one was awesome!

Captivating Suspense

A former author of historical romances, Penelope Williamson has successfully transitioned to suspenseful mysteries. Her latest revisits 1927 New Orleans where two teenaged girls have gone missing, and one has been found murdered. Detective Daman Rourke solved this murder when he arrested Titus Dupre, a young black man soon to be executed for his crime. Rourke's investigation of another disturbing murder leads him to an abandoned macaroni factory where he finds local priest Father Patrick Walsh dead from crucifixion . Disturbingly, Father Walsh was a priest at the parish where Rourke's brother Paulie also serves. Rourke's life is further complicated by the fact that his lover, film star Remy Lelourie, is receiving obsessive mail and phone calls from an unknown source. In a bizarre twist, young women keep disappearing, and all of those young women that have either disappeared or been murdered happened to belong to a club that idolized Miss Lelourie. Daman Rourke's sultry New Orleans is brought vividly to life, from the bordellos of the quarter to the mansions of the high society as they divest their hidden secrets. Steamy love scenes between Damon and Remy underscore the free spirit of the 1920's, especially after the repressed sexuality of the Victorian era. And as the two mysteries seem to become intertwined, the suspense is brought to a fever pitch reaching the novel's stunning conclusion.

A lush, noir-like thriller that echoes Hammett and Chandler

The year: 1927The place: New OrleansThe crimes:- Father Patrick Walsh is found crucified to death in an empty macaroni factory. Several young girls, all friends, disappear only to then turn up raped, tortured and dead.- A young black teenager is found guilty of two of the girls' murders and is executed in Louisiana's brand new electric chair.- Someone with access to every part of her life is stalking Remy Lelourie, a most popular and beautiful silent film star who is shooting a picture in New Orleans, her hometown. Her lover, homicide detective Damon Rourke, is determined to solve the crimes that ultimately force him to confront his own personal demons.WAGES OF SIN by Penelope Williamson (MORTAL SIN, THE OUTSIDER) is a lush, noir-like thriller in the style of Hammett and Chandler. It captures the flamboyant period made famous by flappers and the Charleston. The tale is told in stark prose tempered with "down home" southern inflections. Readers will find themselves almost able to feel, see, smell and hear everything from the stench of the mud flats to the glitter of Bourbon Street; from the noisy, crowded speakeasies to the quiet mansions of the moneyed folks; from the aroma of sizzling catfish to visualizing the sun's brightness as it shines off the yellow patina of the Stutz Bearcat that Detective Rourke drives around town.Williamson spares no detail as she presents the events and characters early in the narrative. This more than sets the stage for the information that follows. And, as readers move into the actual investigations, where all of the puzzle pieces are slowly revealed, the entire picture soon falls into a sharply carved, cohesive whole. While we are given clues and red herrings, in the finest tradition of suspense/mystery novels, few will guess who is responsible for the horrible crimes, so carefully limned is the mystery tale tightly woven into the plot.Most often, genre writers present plot-driven books, especially those who write mystery novels. In WAGES OF SIN, however, Penelope Williamson adds a deeper dimension to an already challenging read, because she offers a glimpse into the feelings and the minds of her characters. A perfect example of her riff into persona is how she portrays the tortured detective Rourke as he relieves his tension: "?Rourke lifted the sax to his mouth, licked his lips, took a tight breath, and then he hit a note that would have left an impression on bone ? [w] hat he played on this night was dark music, and deep, like the ocean, and you felt it in your liver as well as your heart. You heard things in it you'd never heard before, things you weren't sure you wanted to go near." This kind of prose is indicative of Williamson's style: it is literary, full of emotion, deeply insightful and as sharp as a scalpel.This book is full of 'southern gothic' elements, rich in patois and the language so common to hard-boiled detectives of the 1920s. The plot is set up like a series of panels, each part of a whole that