Practice to Deceive

David Housewright

yan, 2012 · The Holland Taylor Trilogy 2-kitob · Open Road Media

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The swindling of an elderly widow leads to “a greased-lightning tale of scam and counterscam” from an Edgar Award–winning author (Kirkus Reviews).
 When a drunk driver kills her entire family, Florida retiree Irene Gustafson is left rich and alone. Between savings and life insurance, the death of her son and his family leaves her with nearly $300,000—a veritable fortune in a community where most live off social security. Following the advice of Ann Landers, Mrs. Gustafson hands the money over to an investment manager. The returns are steady until he starts investing in Willow Tree, a low-income housing development on the fringes of the Twin Cities. The money vanishes, and Mrs. Gustafson is destitute. That’s where Holland Taylor, Minneapolis private detective, comes in. His recently retired parents are Mrs. Gustafson’s neighbors, and they want Taylor to recover the old lady’s money. It seems impossible, but as he investigates Willow Tree he finds a twisted real-estate conspiracy with deep roots in city politics—and a vicious killer hired to protect the secret.

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DIVA former reporter and adman, David Housewright (b. 1955) has, in the last fifteen years, become one of America’s most successful mystery authors. Born in Minnesota, he pursued journalism from a young age, hand-mimeographing a neighborhood newsletter and editing his high school paper, from which he was fired for printing an editorial condemning the Vietnam War. After high school he went to work, first for the Minneapolis Tribune and later for a small newspaper in southern Minnesota. It was there that Housewright met Holland Laak, the county sheriff who inspired his first detective: Holland Taylor./divDIV /divTaylor’s debut, Penance (1995), was a success, winning Housewright an Edgar Award for best first novel. As he gradually began writing fiction fulltime, Housewright produced two more Taylor novels before publishing A Hard Ticket Home (2004), which introduced Rushmore McKenzie, an unlicensed Twin Cities private eye. In 2011, Housewright published the eighth McKenzie novel, Highway 61, and he has plans for more. He continues to live and work in Minnesota.