CHRIS WILTZ Killing Circle

CHRIS WILTZ – The Killing Circle. Macmillan, hardcover, 1981. Pinnacle, paperback, 1985.

   I like private detective stories. Ordinarily, the first in what promises to be a new private eye series is a matter for rejoicing. Add a plot that begins with a set of missing books, rare editions of William Blake, and the vividly moody back-ground of New Orleans, and what we get this time is, well, a book that just doesn’t live up to its potential.

   The detective is named Neal Rafferty, and his biggest problem in life is that his father doesn’t understand him, and his love life is in trouble too. He’s quit the police force under fire, and they don’t like him too well either.

   The plot is nicely twisted, although heavily tangled at times in massive coincidence. Rafferty meets a girl he can respond to, of course. The problem here is that the converse does not seem to be wholly true.

   What lets us down is the writing. The art of subtlety seems beyond Wiltz’s capabilities. Most of the story she tells is stiff, formal, perfunctory and placid.

Rating: C minus.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 6, No. 3, May-June 1982 (truncated and slightly revised).


[UPDATE] 12-17-13.   I ended this review in its first appearance rather smugly with a PostScript commenting on the fact that all the while reading this book I was under the impression (false) that Chris Wiltz was male. Further comment in this regard unnecessary. A re-do on this one might be in order.

       The Neal Rafferty series —

1. The Killing Circle (1981)
2. A Diamond Before You Die (1987)
3. The Emerald Lizard (1991)
4. Glass House (1994)

   Chris Wiltz has written one other work of crime fiction, that being Shoot The Money (2012), described by one source as a “racy gumbo of suspense, comedy, and ‘sisters-in-crime.'”