(4/10 stars)
[He] looked bitter and dispossessed, like a man who had had something precious snatched away from him. It wasn’t grief; it had nothing to do with grief. Was that why any compassion she felt for him was purely in the abstract? Because he had said “my wife” in the same tone he might have used to refer to his horse, or his car?
The murder down the street barely registers for Mary Vaughan. After all, the killer was arrested right away, and she has a lot going on in her own life. Not only has she recently broken off an engagement and quit her job, but Mary is also responsible for her teenage cousin Jenny, whose parents sent her to Santa Fe to escape a violent older boyfriend. When Mary learns that Jenny’s ex is in the area, they need to get out of town in a hurry. A long weekend in Juarez should do the trick.
What Mary doesn’t know is that the murder victim’s husband David is very aware of her. This possessive man has been nearly undone by his lack of control surrounding his wife’s death. The police are keeping him at arm’s length, and the swift arrest of the culprit robs him of a proper outlet for his rage. The police don’t know that David’s wife spoke to him before she died. She told him that she sought help from a blonde neighbor, who closed her door against the dying woman.
David believes he has found his wife’s true murderer: Mary Vaughan. And he is following her to Mexico to kill her.
Continue reading “In Cold Pursuit (1977) by Ursula Curtiss”
(5/10 stars)
(8/10 stars)
(6/10 stars)
Dead Yesterday 