Product Description

The setting is Steelton, a struggling Midwestern town trying to save its decaying inner city by building a major league baseball stadium. Dark Lady introduces Assistant County Prosecutor Stella Marz, who has escaped her alcoholic father and working class background to become head of the Prosecutor's homicide unit. Her ambition is to become County Prosecutor. But this ambition, indeed her very survival, is threatened when her ex-lover Jack Kovak, a drug lawyer, is murdered, and Stella leads the investigation. There are more deaths and revelations about Jack Kovak's dealings with the city's crime lord, and a trail of wrong-doing, that implicates officers in law enforcement, possibly within her own office. As her inquiry draws her into a re-examination of her own complex past, her certainty that she is being watched and followed, leads her to fear for her own future.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276930 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 458 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dashiell Hammett, a master of big-city crime fiction, would have enjoyed Richard North Patterson's latest thriller, set in a fictional Midwestern city called Steelton. This burnt-out burg is located on the shores of Lake Erie, and is a place bitterly divided by politics. The construction of a $275 million baseball stadium threatens to be Steelton's downfall, rather than its redemption.

Arthur Bright is Prosecutor of Erie County, but wants to become mayor. His campaign attacks the new ballpark as a sham, "a shameful diversion of public financing from such pressing needs as better schools, better housing, and safer streets." His protégé, Assistant County Prosecutor Stella Marz, is 38, ambitious and has been dubbed "the dark lady" by various defence lawyers. If Arthur wins the mayoral race, she intends to become Prosecutor herself. But two murders involving drugs and twisted sex threaten her future.

First, Tommy Fielding, the project manager for Steelton 2000 (as the new home of the Steelton Blues will be called), is found dead in the company of a hooker--both apparently overdosed on heroin. The fact that Fielding was gay and had never used drugs before bothers Stella and Chief of Detectives Nathaniel Dance. Their worries are soon pushed aside by another, more shocking murder--Jack Novak, a defence lawyer is discovered hanging from his closet door, castrated and dressed in drag. Jack was once Stella's lover--and was also one of Bright's largest contributors. For Stella, the murders are too close to home. "Maybe this is about me. But I have to see it through."

Dark Lady is shrouded by the clouds of deceit and greed, and the sleek structure of Steelton 2000 dominates the landscape like a Dr.Frankenstein's Castle with luxury boxes. --Dick Adler

About the Author
Richard North Patterson has written a number of novels including the international bestsellers, Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgement, Silent Witness, No Safe Place, Dark Lady and Protect and Defend. His novels have won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He and his wife, Laurie, live with their family in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard.

Customer Reviews

Worth the wait.......I'm not so sure
Having read everything this guy has written and thoroughly enjoyed the plots, the characters and the dark humour that lurks throughout his stories, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Dark Lady in paperback. Well now.......what to say..... The story is heavy on detail and the humour is definitely missing. There is none of the sharp repartee that has become almost a hallmark of RNP's books in the past. I thought the plot was good although the main characters lacked any real personality and I certainly didn't find myself routing for Stella Marz as she fought her way through a fog of political intrigue and drugs. Suffice to say, this one didn't grab my attention in the same wa as all the others.....perhaps a change of scene, characters and storyline are required for the next novel......

Disappointing cliched drivel
This story was a real disappointment - the characters weren't believable (particularly the author's attempt to write as a woman) and the plot was unconvincing as well as not particularly interesting. It really became a bore to read and the end was about as exciting as a damp squib. I won't be in a hurry to read any more from this author.

try putting this book down...
this book will blow you away, if you ahve the stomach for it. it's gruesome from the start but the pace just gets faster and faster. it's all about murder, politics, corruption and lies with more twists and turns than the Sixth Sense.
it's set in a rundown town where the "dark lady" is a chief prosecutor, but is called to the grisly murder scene of her ex boyfriend. with no physical evidence to go by, she tries to solve the case but is being betrayed by the people she works with, endangering her life.
it's the best RNP book i've read.