There was only one witness, and he was not a good one — the busboy at a new restaurant in the nearby arts colony walking back from the bank. He heard a sudden shout and wheeled just in time to see a large black car accelerate around the corner – “kind of a big SUV, but not as big as a Hummer, maybe a Lincoln” was what he told the patrol cop who first responded to his 9-1-1 call. “It hit the old man right in the center of the front end and sent him flying.”
The old man, Roy Castor, had not been thrown far and with luck he might have survived if he’d been thrown the same direction as his hat, which flew left onto the grassy median. But the impact tossed him to the right like a broken stuffed toy and his head hit the curb with a sickening hollow thud.
“Man, I dropped a melon on the kitchen floor last week and it sounded just like that,” Arturo said, adding his view that the old man was dead when he hit the curb. In fact Roy didn't draw his final breath for another hour, in the cold and remarkably empty emergency room of Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
“The dude went by real slow and looked at me, ” Arturo told the detective who arrived later. “I don't think he saw me until after he hit the old man, then he just floored it and screamed around the corner to the right and he was gone. That's when I ran down to the old man and called you guys.”
Thom Anderson, the Sarasota police detective who had drawn the case, thought it a straightforward hit-and-run. An overpaid and overeducated punk kid, Thom figured, with a job selling insurance or houses or stocks, had run over an old man crossing in the middle of the block, panicked, and fled. He would probably turn himself in the next morning, ashamed and completely lawyered up, maybe with his equally overpaid father beside him.
His moment of panic would cost him a fine and a few months of probation and might cost him the fancy job. Thom had seen it more and more often as Sarasota had gentrified, and he didn't like it any better this time than the last.
Treasure of Saint-Lazare: A Novel of Paris Description:
An engaging mystery about lost Nazi war loot and contemporary murders that recalls other popular international thrillers of the past decade. Chosen the best historical mystery of 2014 by Readers’ Favorite.
A man caught in the middle of a search for World War II treasures and a murder plot finds himself re-examining his own past tragedies.
Pearce keeps secrets from his characters and readers alike; the plot twist at midpoint successfully changes the landscape of the story, in this case both literally and figuratively.
Eddie and Jen set out on a dangerous journey to uncover the truth and possibly the painting. Their quest takes them back to Sarasota, FLa., described in all its humidity and heat. Eddie’s relationship with Jen gives the reader ample insight into her all-too-human character as well.
– Kirkus Reviews
