Rain Dance (Worldwide Library Mystery) - Softcover

A first mystery with an environmental theme features a female Department of Interior (DOI) agent tracking poachers and other politically incorrect (and very dangerous) scum. We first encounter diminutive Venus Diamond, weakened by malaria, as she is being abruptly pulled from a long-term assignment in Singapore and sent back home to investigate the strange death of a wealthy timber widow whose body has been pulled from the waters off Ozone Beach, Washington, a politically correct resort. Had Madge Leroux noticed the altered nesting habits of the pelicans on the isolated lighthouse island she recently purchased? Had it led to her death? Had her hard-living son made a shady deal with the US Navy, represented by skulking, sandy-mustached Jack ``Popeye'' O'Connor? Isn't village council president Janice Mercy a tad surly to outsiders, especially considering the importance of the tourist trade? Why is fellow DOI cop Sparks pooh-poohing the mutilation of bears on his turf? And, finally, will Venus be able to shake her fever long enough to solve several murders, as well as focus on the romantically interesting men who cling to the trajectory of this rather complicated tale? Moody oversells her heroine (a movie-star mother, a rider of Harley Davidsons) and overpacks her plot (in a rare first novel that actually should have been longer). But the spirit and sophistication--you'll think of the classic Avengers TV series- -smooth any number of rough edges. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Featuring an under-five-feet-tall, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding heroine named Venus Diamond, this first novel clearly is offering the reader something different. Moody delivers that and more with a wonderfully quirky, whimsical, and thoroughly entertaining story. After surviving a near-fatal case of malaria while in Southeast Asia tracking international poachers, Venus is ordered to Seattle to work on what her boss dubs "the Pelican Patrol" case. A bullet-riddled body has washed up on the shores of Ozone Beach, a remote village that's both a pelican sanctuary and home to 200 surly eccentrics. When Venus arrives in Ozone Beach, she encounters rampant hostility from the villagers, who appear to have something to hide--so much so that Venus' life is quickly put in danger. Moody's fresh-as-a-breeze style, in-your-face humor, offbeat plot, and delightfully sassy heroine produce an utterly captivating crime novel--but one with a serious message about the environment and animal rights. Emily Melton