From Booklist
Constance was once the pride of Lake Tahoe's Echo Bay, but the Depression sunk it, figuratively and literally. Now, in 1940, investors have a plan to resurrect the steamship as part of a casino resort complex. Shawn Rainey, whose dream of a gold medal in downhill skiing went the way of a horrific spill, is hired as the PR front man for the resurrection of the ship. Like Constance, Shawn could use a little resurrecting of his own, after decades of pill and alcohol abuse in the wake of his accident. As the community's opposition to the resurrection project mounts, Shawn struggles to control his addictions even as the controversy turns violent, and he questions his role in the whole sordid mess. Barre, author of the Wil Hardesty series, continues his thematic obsession with the past as an involuntarily assimilated entity from which there can be no escape, only accommodation. This lyrically written novel is filled with complex characters for whom tragedy is a daily burden. Thoroughly engaging if a bit depressing. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
In Echo Bay, the past is on a collision course with the present. August 1940: In driving rain, in darkness, Lake Tahoe’s fabled steamship, Constance, slips beneath the surface of Echo Bay. Present: Sean Rainey, ex-PR fixer, failed husband, once-hot Olympic ski prospect, is delivered an ultimatum. Sell the dream of raising Constance to the town he once fled ù a suspect in his popular brother’s drowning deathùor lose his children. Because making no choice is his choice, Sean’s return comes under an ever-darkening cloud of murder and deceit, hate and betrayal, big money and bad blood. To survive -- and to claim his children -- Sean must confront not only his own violent past, but an adversary hell-bent on destroying him and those he loves.
About the Author
Richard Barre was born in Los Angeles and raised in California. One of his books, The Innocents, is a winner of the Shamus Award for best first P.I. novel; another, Burning Moon, made the LA Times best-seller list. Prior to writing crime fiction and short stories, he was a copywriter and creative director at his own advertising agency and wrote and edited travel publications. Currently, he is also the associate publisher at the newly- revitalized Capra Press in Santa Barbara, where he lives with his wife, Susan.
Echo Bay FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Once a champion downhill skier, Shawn Rainey has hit the skids. His estranged wife lives with his sleazy former business partner, Terry. What's worse, Terry is now extorting Shawn to return to Lake Tahoe and sell his plan to raise the fabled ship Constance from her chilly grave of 60 years-or lose visitation rights to his children. While he has many enemies-some of them old friends-his chief obstacle is Catherine Mulvhill, a flinty scion of old money with a glassy surface and icy depths all her own. As in Barre's award-winning Wil Hardesty series (Burning Moon), the universal adversary is the ever-present past, from whose shadowy reaches emerge tendrils of guilt, retribution, and deception. Barre's clipped, telegraphic style takes some getting used to, but the hurtling, impulsive prose adds an air of menacing immediacy to this elegiac tale. Combining a skein of haunting secrets worthy of Ruth Rendell or Thomas H. Cook, with swift, surprising action, a vivid and unique setting, and crackling dialog, this is captivating psychological suspense of the first order. Recommended for all libraries. [Barre is associate publisher and senior editor of the recently relaunched Capra Press in Santa Barbara, CA.-Ed.]-David Wright, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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