Kiss It Goodbye

By John Wessel

Book Overview

John Wessel is back with the third highly anticipated installment in his Harding mystery series. Wessel returns at the top of his game with the eagerly awaited third book featuring hard-boiled, ex-con, and ex-private investigator, Harding. KISS IT GOODBYE finds Harding at work on throwaway cases that other detectives won't touch. But when Tracy Lawrence (a former lover of Harding's girlfriend Alison) turns up dead in a small Illinois town, Harding is drawn into the strange circle of Grand Terrace. An eclectic University of Chicago dorm favoured by artists, writers and other social misfits, Grand Terrace was once the residence of Alison, Tracy and a cast of eccentric characters, and it soon becomes clear that someone hasn't forgotten what happened behind closed doors. Digging up a past that Alison considered dead and buried, Harding finds himself on a case that is as personal, and as dangerous as they come.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684870630
• ISBN13: 9780684870632
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Very well written

On his wedding day to Beth Reinhardt, English Professor Charles Muller fails to show up for the ceremony. Two of the guests Harding and his lover Alison try to console Beth. Harding, an ex-con who plays sleuth without a license, begins searching for Charles because Alison wants him to do this for her friend Beth. Harding quickly learns that the Chicago police seek to question the missing Charles on two murder investigations that seem linked. Harding concludes that there is more to this case then just a frightened groom fleeing matrimony. He thinks the tie in goes back to the days when Charles and Alison were University of Chicago undergraduates living in the Grand Terrace dorm. Now Harding worries that his beloved Alison may also be in peril. The third Harding tale, KISS IT GOODBYE, is suggestive of the hard boiled detective stories though the lead relationship feels more romantic then the "death ecstasy" sexual edge of the previous books. The secondary cast is an eccentric ensemble who keeps the plot running wild and making life quite complex for the hero. Still with a engaging story line, a fabulous cast, and a vivid Ferris Bueller style tour of Chicago, Harding owns John Wessel's novel as he brings most of the subplots together into a cohesive taut tale.Harriet Klausner