Overkill

Emma Streat is rebuilding her shattered life in Boston when she receives an SOS from Venice. She must come at once to intervene in a disastrous affair between her opera singer niece, Vanessa, and a notorious playboy. But the night Emma and Vanessa return home, Vanessa is struck down by what appears to be the first case of avian flu in the United States.

Suddenly Emma is forced to cope with the medical world. As the case assumes a larger, international aspect, she finds herself working again with a charismatic British peer. Will their unusual relationship survive Emma’s new interest in a brilliant doctor?

After two shocking murders, Emma has to rev up her now-established talent for making unlikely connections, in order to smoke out a lethal global network that sells stolen viruses — and save herself from a painful and horrifying death.

Eugenia Lovett West’s sequel to Without Warning is a fast-moving, thrilling ride, featuring a resourceful, mature woman, a unique character in crime fiction today.

Reviews

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Publishers Weekly:

At the start of West's sophisticated second Emma Streat mystery (after 2007's Without Warning), Emma, a former diva who still mourns her late husband as well as the loss of her singing voice and her house on the Connecticut River ("now a pile of bombed out rubble"), flies from Boston to Venice to stop her opera star niece, Vanessa Metcalf, from running away with a millionaire playboy who races cars. In Vanessa's opulent hotel room after a recital, Emma discovers the body of Vanessa's accompanist, Mark Dykstra, hanging from a curtain rod, an apparent suicide. Lord Andrew Rodale, a British spy and Emma's secret lover, lends a hand in her search for answers. When Emma returns home to Boston, she becomes ill with a mysterious virus. While some readers might wish for more action and less armchair detecting at times, all will cheer the courageous and stylish Emma, who typically dons an Hermès scarf when slipping into sleuthing mode.