Killer Weekend

Killer Weekend by Ridley Pearson

Eight years ago, Sun Valley, Idaho, sheriff Walt Fleming bravely thwarted an attempt on Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler's life. Now AG Shaler is back in town, poised to announce her candidacy for president at a three-day conference catering to the world's most prominent business leaders. The event is the brainchild of Patrick Cutter, a tycoon whose sybaritic lifestyle is a source of both scorn and awe. (He is but one example of the super-rich citizenry that's taken up residence in the once-quiet ski town.) There is no shortage of security for the proceedings--local police, Secret Service, and Cutter's own team--but it's not enough to deter a cunning assassin who slips seamlessly between a pair of identities. Meanwhile, Sheriff Fleming must cope with the suspicious death of a beautiful socialite and the breakup of his own marriage; it doesn't help matters that his deputy is sleeping with his ex-wife.

--Killer Weekend by Ridley Pearson, Copyright ©2007 Ridley Pearson, published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons

My Review

The place is Sun Valley, Idaho and, following a hunch, Patrolman Walter Fleming enters the vacation home of New York Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler. He found a community property bike in the woods behind her house and one of the windows to the crawlspace of her home is broken. He saves her life, but not before being seriously injured himself.

Fast forward eight years and Patrolman Fleming is now Sheriff Fleming. Liz Shaler has returned to Sun Valley Idaho and some believe she’s about to announce her candidacy for President of the United States. As local law enforcement, Walt joins her security detail, but he still has his regular duties, including an investigation into the death of a beautiful and faithless socialite, his interfering father, controlling the group of conference protestors and his own dissolving marriage. Not to mention hunting down a clever assassin who manages to slip in past security as easily as he slips between identities.

He saved Liz Shaler’s life once before. Can he do it again?

Normally, I give more detail in my reviews, but I found it difficult to do so with this story without giving away the entire plot. Know this: If you’ve never read Ridley Pearson before—and I never had—he weaves a tightly intricate story combining several different seemingly unrelated story lines that are, in fact, all part of the whole. My only criticism is Sheriff Fleming’s seemingly infallible intuition that tells him means one thing when everyone else says it means something else. Sure, I’ve heard of a cop’s instinct, but it just doesn’t quite ring true with me. Nevertheless, it was a great story.

I give this story THREE AND A HALF STARS.