Fall from grace
By: Miriam Borgenicht.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1984
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 216
Table of contents: title: Rich, respected Dr. William Gardiner, 67, has killed himself after two months of marriage to 26-year-old nurse Nan Dunlop, leaving a cryptic note and a fortune to his devastated bride. So poor Nan is not only a widow but is also blamed for Gardiner's suicide by just about everybody--including the doctor's lawyer/friend Victor Hemmings. (Only Dr. Tad Collins, a onetime student of the suicidal doctor, seems to see Nan's side of things.) And, when Nan decides that the suicide-note suggests some blackmail behind the scenes, she determines to solve the mystery and clear herself of responsibility. She moves to Washington to track down and talk to everyone from her husband's past--all of whom seem blessed with near total recall: his old girlfriends, one of whom has suffered a stroke; his old medical associates, who reminiscence about a research project that was abruptly ended; his alcoholic sister, living in joyless affluence. The upshot? Nan begins to see a pattern of a grievous wrong in her husband's past. . .as well as a present danger to herself. Solid, intricate plotting--but the narration, all through the eyes and thoughts of spunky yet humorless Nan, bogs things down in a fussy, fancy melodramatic style; and this is less charming, overall, than Borgenicht's other recent, more offbeat mysteries.