UNDER THE GUN
Business is bad for fledgling Private Investigator, Peter Harris, just four years out of Dartmouth and, by necessity, still living at home with his parents in suburban Darien, Connecticut. He is beginning to have second thoughts about his choice of careers.
Then, suddenly, he has four cases – more than he can possibly handle. But, with persistence, a rare sense of intuition and a little help from his friends, he manages to persevere.
When Peter reads in the Times that Russian impressionist painter Gregor Kretchko has been shot to death in his Greenwich Village apartment, his reaction is to wonder if Diane Foster was involved. The beautiful Mrs. Foster had tried to retain Peter to find some one to “take care of” Mr. Kretchko who was blackmailing her over a brief affair they had had. Peter declined to help her but nevertheless becomes intimately involved in finding the murderer.
Then, he is hired by a Darien couple to try to locate a priceless Tiffany diamond necklace that had been stolen in a rash of jewel robberies in Darien. His investigation takes him to pawn shops in Bridgeport, a retired fence in New York and finally to an armed showdown with the burglar and his surprising accomplice.
At a Camp Seneca reunion, Peter is hired by Charles Wyatt whose son has been kidnapped. Over the vehement objection of the FBI, Peter goes up to the camp to investigate.
After the FBI botches the ransom drop, Peter makes the subsequent one and the boy is released but Wyatt retains Peter because of his knowledge of the camp and its surroundings to hunt for the kidnappers.
Finally, Peter gets still another case, from NBC for whom he had worked successfully for in the past. The network is being sued by a model, Ashlee Arnold, who fell and broke her ankle while working on their hit show, Deal or No Deal. She claims NBC is liable and that she’ll never be able to dance again.
Peter investigates and discovers that her only dancing experience had been as a pole dancer at a strip club in New Jersey. While pleased, the NBC’s lawyers are concerned that a jury might sympathize with her plight and they offer a settlement which she surprisingly refuses. But, Peter has a surprise for her.
Then Diane Foster is arrested for Kretchko’s murder and Peter is called as a witness against her. However, he continues to believe in her innocence and works to prove it.
In his own unique and disarming style, Peter juggles his overload of cases despite the constant distraction of the FBI, the local Darien Police, his on-and-off again girl friend and his own second thoughts about his chosen career.
Written in the first person, “Under the Gun” is a rare example of the detective novel genre. The laughs come as fast
as the pages turn.
UNDER THE GUN
Business is bad for fledgling Private Investigator, Peter Harris, just four years out of Dartmouth and, by necessity, still living at home with his parents in suburban Darien, Connecticut. He is beginning to have second thoughts about his choice of careers.
Then, suddenly, he has four cases – more than he can possibly handle. But, with persistence, a rare sense of intuition and a little help from his friends, he manages to persevere.
When Peter reads in the Times that Russian impressionist painter Gregor Kretchko has been shot to death in his Greenwich Village apartment, his reaction is to wonder if Diane Foster was involved. The beautiful Mrs. Foster had tried to retain Peter to find some one to “take care of” Mr. Kretchko who was blackmailing her over a brief affair they had had. Peter declined to help her but nevertheless becomes intimately involved in finding the murderer.
Then, he is hired by a Darien couple to try to locate a priceless Tiffany diamond necklace that had been stolen in a rash of jewel robberies in Darien. His investigation takes him to pawn shops in Bridgeport, a retired fence in New York and finally to an armed showdown with the burglar and his surprising accomp
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