THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408190109
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: BOOK BREAK
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY LENORE HART
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
FIONA FITZGERALD stars in Warren Adler's (``War of the Roses'') Washington-based crime novels. Her father was a wealthy senator, and her inheritance finances socializing in a style beyond the dreams of the average police department drone. She's not above pulling a few social-caste strings, if it'll help implicate a misbehaving bigshot.
In ``The Ties That Bind'' (Donald I. Fine, 220 pp., $19.95), a tale of murder and illicit sex (so what else is new?) in the nation's capital, she meets stunning Gail Prentiss - black, brilliant, ambitious and 6 feet tall. Partnered on the theory that female cops are better suited to solve crimes against women, they get their first case: The daughter of a powerful lawyer is found dead - stabbed, leather-bound and gagged - in the swanky Mayflower Hotel. But an autopsy reveals the wounds are superficial; the cause of death was an asthma attack brought on by the trauma of rough sex gone awry.
The scene sets Fiona reeling; it recalls an ugly incident from her wild past. The prime suspect is a rising young lawyer at the Justice Department, but Fiona is convinced the real culprit is a dignified associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court with whom she once had a secret, dangerous fling. She's obsessed with nailing him, but won't tell her partner and her boss why, infuriating them.
Adler's Washington scenes and ``types'' are amusing, if broadly drawn. But I read with a persistent feeling of disappointment. The female detectives were hyped as ``partners (who) travel through the labyrinth of upper-crust Washington,'' yet they never work together. They supposedly become close, but spend most of their time concealing their thoughts, histories and investigations from each other. Mostly they circle warily, like rival debutantes at a ball.
Women and minorities don't fare well here, whether victims, cops or supporting cast. The black police chief suffers a domineering mom, a bitchy wife and a tacky nickname (``The Eggplant'') that the author insists on using up to seven or eight times per page. Before the end of the book, I'd forgotten the poor guy's real name.
The opening scene is spicy, the talk incentive between Fiona and her current paramour. But remaining dialogue is terse, although (as if to make up for it) the author pops in frequently to tell us how a character felt or what he meant. Telling, not showing, seems Adler's specialty, as are long interior monologues about Fiona's feelings, her past and her current pressures and insecurities.
Adler pays superficial homage to the current buzz - political corruption, sexual abuse and date rape - but relies heavily on James-Bond-like pulp stereotypes: handsome heartless men; sex-obsessed females; the beautiful black amazon; indolent society babes who actually say ``dahling,'' the short-tempered, stressed-out boss.
Inconsistencies abound. Gail supposedly dotes on her terminally ill father, yet barely turns a hair when he dies while she's out on a case. And Fiona stalks her dangerous suspect with embarrassing clumsiness - letting him into her home, threatening him like a naive high school girl. No wonder by the last chapter she's in hot water, and without clothes, too. The climax seems merely an excuse for another round of bondage, with a ``Here Comes the Cavalry'' rescue that made me snicker.
By story's end Fiona and Gail are soul sisters, but it's hard to figure out why. ``Ties'' felt suspiciously like the old-style ``Lady in Distress'' story dressed up in whips, leather and equal-opportunity rhetoric. MEMO: Lenore Hart, the author of ``Black River,'' lives on the Eastern Shore,
where she working on her second novel. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
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