Product Description

When elderly Morey Gilbert is found, lying dead in the grass by his wife, Lily, it’s a tragedy, but it shouldn’t have been a shock - old people die. But when she finds a bullet hole in his skull, the blood washed away by heavy rain, sadness turns to fear. It looks like an execution … Soon a whole city is fearful as new victims are found, killed with the same cold precision. All elderly. All apparently blameless. Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth, race to uncover a connection and their best hope of doing so may be Grace McBride, beautiful, damaged survivor of an earlier killing spree. And the answers, it seems, are buried in a terrible past. Filled with the same crackling dialogue, pace and rich, vivid characters as the author’s debut Want to Play?, PJ Tracy’s Live Bait is an electrifying thriller that explores the chilling extremes of evil and retribution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89493 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
After a well-received debut novel the follow-up is always a mighty mountain to climb. Those who enjoyed the first book want the upward trajectory to be maintained, but we all fear a loss of momentum. PJ Tracy's Live Bait proves one thing conclusively: that the phenomenal Want to Play? was no fluke, and that in Tracy we have an American suspense writer with all the credentials to sit firmly in the upper echelons of top crime novelists.

That first book had critics rooting through their lexicons to come up with new ways of saying just how edge-of-the-seat it was, and if the new novel doesn't deliver quite the same levels of tension, that may be because Tracy has other fish to fry here than simply raising the pulse rate of the reader. Lily Gilbert stumbles across the body of her husband Morey in a field, shot through the brain, her grief is matched by shock at the execution-style death. Soon, other murders are happening with the same ruthless precision: old people are being dispatched in the same cool-headed fashion, and the victims appear to have led lives that hardly invited their violent ends. Assigned to solve the deaths are Detectives Rolseth and Magozzi, two very different individuals whose quirky method of working together produces only fitful success--until they light upon the attractive Grace McBride, who has managed to live through a previous bout of bloodletting. But can Grace lead the duo to the answers before more people die? And what are the consequences of delving into some very dark secrets?

If the slow-burn tension here is more tantalisingly handled than in the first book, that doesn't bespeak a faltering grip on Tracy's part: the agenda here is clearly the steady, methodical accruing of detail (in terms of both plot and characterisation) that pays handsome dividends, even if Tracy stretches our patience to audacious limits. Once again, we have the brilliantly observed character building and Hitchcockian assaults on the reader's sensibility. The suspense now is… can the third Tracy novel top its predecessors? --Barry Forshaw

Review
Slick, enjoyable thriller. PJ Tracy is about to become a household name (Daily Mirror )

Her second offering doesn't disappoint. Vivid scenes, realistic characters and humorous dialogue (Time Out )

About the Author
PJ Tracy lives in the US. Live Bait is her second novel.

Customer Reviews

Great story and characters - but a bit too far fetched
I absolutely loved Want To Play and I couldn't wait to read Live Bait. The authors are really good at making their readers feel that they're right there in Minnesota and the recurring characters from the first book are given much more depth in this one. The story is fast paced and great fun to read. They've obviously put a lot of time into thinking up the plot and sub-plots. But without giving too much of the ending away, I'd have to say that it's a bit too far fetched even for me. I normally don't care too much about whether something could actually happen in real life, but in this case there is a certain point where the plot runs a risk of becoming comical, which is why I only give it 4 instead of the 5 stars I'd like to give it.

That said, it's a great page turner along the same lines as the first book and it had me glued to the pages until I'd finished it. I highly recommend it.

good read
I enjoyed "Want to play?" alot but I think that this is slightly better, I could not but the book down. An excellent read. If you enjoyed the first you will love this.

Great follow up to Want to play?
Live Bait is another writing success by the mother and daughter team that is P J Tracy.Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth(and all the others) return to solve a series of odd elderly killings.The first few chapters are dull compared to their previous novel, but as Live Bait progresses and as the case unfolds dramatically, the pace quickens.The characters in Live Bait are much better than those in Want to Play simply because they are more down-to-earth, but yet not.Live Bait deals with much deeper social issues than Want to play and shows the darker side of Homicide.As usual, the ending is tight and powerful.Deaths, shooting and honesty are the dish of the day and just like Want to play, the ending leaves you wanting more.Grace and the Monkeewrench crew are all here and thanks to an interview I read, the same characters, by which I mean Magozzi,Grace Macbride etc are all to star in 2 more books.Personally, P J Tracy need to do something different in their next book so as not to become stale, but I can't wait nonetheless...