Leave Me By Dying: An Ellis Portal Mystery

By Rosemary Aubert

Book Overview

This book is the fourth in criminologist Rosemary Aubert's series featuring Ellis Portal, a disgraced former judge turned sleuth. A prequel to the earlier books, it is set in 1965 when Ellis Portal is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552783715
• ISBN13: 9781552783719
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: McArthur & Company
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A sinister web surrounds death and cover-up

Born in Niagara Falls, New York, Rosemary Aubert now resides in Toronto, Canada. She has an easy familiarity with the criminal justice system after having spent many years working in that area. LEAVE ME BY DYING is a prequel to already published Ellis Portal novels. A series of movies may be in the works based on Auberts Ellis Portal series. Ellis Portal is 23 years old, and the year is 1965. He is in Toronto and is attending Law School. His rich and handsome friend and fellow student Gleason Adams requests that Ellis accompany him to an autopsy, which will become part of a school project they need to work on. Once there, all is not routine. The body is that of a young woman, at first glance, with a bag over her head and a rope around her neck. The autopsy is interrupted, and the body disappears, but not before Gleason fingers a packet from the body which contains two unusual rings. In the meantime, Portal rushes to pull together another project which might gain entry for him as an intern to Magistrate Sheldrake Tuppin. Kavin, his professor, tries to give Portal a feeling for what the law is really like: "'Magistrate Tuppin is of the 'Dirty Hands' school.' Kavin smiled, waiting for my inevitable comment. Everyone knew Tuppin to be an impeccable man-even, his enemies charged, a bit of a dandy. 'I can't imagine the magistrate having any part of his anatomy less than perfectly sanitary at any time, but I do take your meaning, sir,' I answered. 'If you want to impress Tuppin,' Kavin said, 'come down from your ivory tower, Portal.'" Rosemary Aubert writes an excellent mystery that works on many levels: as a psychological puzzle; as a 'coming of age' tale for a somewhat stuffy law student who really hasn't had much experience; as an analysis of what havoc bigotry against gay people wreaks; as a family tragedy; and as a tale with as many twists and turns as the reader could possibly hope for. Aubert writes with a heavy hand towards characterization, and her characters don't disappoint. Family is ever-present in Aubert's presentation, as Portal confronts differing viewpoints in his family. Aubert also takes on the issues of Vietnam, the awakening to Selma and Martin Luther King, the plight of gays, and the transformation of Italian immigrants to positions of power. Shelley Glodowski Senior Reviewer