Product Description

This riveting mystery finds Private Investigator John March descending into Manhattan’s dark and scandalous underworld to help a member of his own family.

David March, John’s brother, has been having affairs with anonymous women he meets on the internet. Now one of these women is stalking him. David knows her only as Wren. She, however, knows everything about David—and she's threatening to tell his wife and colleagues, ruining his life. With his marriage, career, and reputation at stake, David asks John to find her. What John discovers is there is more to Wren than David knows. She’s an intriguing mystery, an internet pornographer and video artist with a penchant for turning the tables on her subjects. But when she turns up dead, John finds he's no longer searching for a stalker—now he's looking for a murderer, and the clues keep leading him back to his older brother’s doorstep.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #564023 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-12
• Released on: 2008-02-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781400097043
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Spiegelman's fine third crime novel to feature New York City PI John March (after Black Maps and Death's Little Helpers), March's Wall Street executive brother, David, comes to March for help with a particularly nasty problem. David has been having torrid sex with a woman he met on the Internet who goes by the name of Wren, and now she's threatening to go public with their affair. David stands to lose his wife and his job unless March can find out what's going on. It turns out that Wren's not a blackmailer—she's a performance artist who videotapes men cheating on their wives, then sells the tapes to art collectors. When Wren turns up dead, David becomes the chief suspect. The melancholy March, his personal life in tatters, hovers constantly on the edge of depression, but he loves his work, and it's this passion that keeps him where readers will want him in the future: on the job. Spiegelman doesn't break new ground, but he continues to be one of today's best practitioners of neo-noir. Author tour. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
The vast majority of critics raved about Red Cat, the third novel in the John March series. While Bob Hoover of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found it clichéd, others praised the suspense-filled, action-packed story line. In a genre where subtler narrative elements are commonly sacrificed to the plot, the critics felt that Red Cat transcended the standard murder mystery with its complex character analyses, pitch-perfect dialogue, and fascinating study of trust and betrayal in intimate relationships. Readers should be forewarned that the robust sexuality of Red Cat may not be to everyone's taste, but fans of neo-noir will find this pulse-pounding thriller hard to put down.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
The third entry in the John March series will provide a satisfying meal for any fan of Manhattan PI novels. In fact, Spiegelman stakes a strong claim to Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder turf (although it is to be hoped Scudder won't cede that territory soon). This time out, the stoic and savvy March must track down brother David's most recent mistress before she follows through on her threat to confront David's wife. For a man who spurned his family's august investment firm to become a detective, it's a hard assignment to swallow--especially with the churlish David constantly shoving March's black-sheep status down his throat. Throw in March's relationship with a married woman who doesn't appreciate his questions about why spouses cheat, and the tension couldn't be much thicker--until his brother's fling gets flung into a river with five slugs in her face, that is. Her intriguing, disturbing backstory gives Spiegelman a chance to revisit a favorite theme: the severe damage family members can inflict on each other in a seemingly endless dance. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A Great Discovery
Easily one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time. John March is one of those jaded, cynical detectives in the noir tradition of Sam Spade, but there's an idealistic heart buried under his tough exterior. In "Red Cat," John tries to save his thankless brother David first from blackmail and later from a charge of murder. The murder victim is David's beautiful, talented, dangerously disturbed mistress and Spiegelman does a great job of making the reader care about this woman, whose unsavory life reads like a sleazy tabloid story. There are plenty of suspects to go around and Spiegelman also does a good job of diverting reader suspicion from one to the other. I admit I did have the who figured out before the end, but the clues were subtle and easily missed; and the story was so well-written, I enjoyed reading along and waiting for John's detecting to catch up to my own. The pacing of the story is excellent. In fact, I read the book in one day. Every time I tried to put it down and do something else, I just had to get back to it. All in all, a really well-written and enjoyable mystery.

fabulous modern day Noir
Growing up brothers John and David March detested one another; as adults their scorn for the other remains unabated. Thus John is more than shocked when his snobbish business executive David turns to him for help. The married David used an Internet site to arrange a tryst. The woman videotaped their performance, which if revealed would cost the older sibling his job and probably his wife; he wants his younger sibling, a private investigator to find out what is going on and how to prevent the personal disaster from occurring. The only additional clue is a red cat tattoo on the hooker.

John learns the female is Wren, who is not blackmailing David per say, but considers herself an artist selling her tapes of married men cheating with her to the highest bidding collector. The scenario takes a deadly spin when someone murders Wren. John assumes that a sex client committed the homicide, but wonders if righteous David could have performed the deed even as he ponders whether blood is thick enough to propel him to protect David especially if he turns out to be the killer.

Besides the family dynamics, RED CAT is a fabulous modern day Noir that brings the Internet fully into the sub-genre. John is terrific as he loathes his pompous "superior" older brother, but also resolves to do his best by him as he is family. Peter Spiegelman provides a great whodunit starring one of the best sleuths to hit the information age (see BLACK MAPS and DEATH'S LITTLE HELPERS).

Harriet Klausner

John March is not your stereotypical gumshoe
As Spiegelman's third John March novel opens, the PI is approached by his insufferable brother David for help in extracting himself from a scenario straight out of Fatal Attraction--sexually adventurous, David is being stalked by a woman he met on the Internet who is apparently interested in more than anonymous sexual trysts. Somehow, she's figured out who he is, and is threatening to reveal their illicit affair to David's wife. David, who only knows the woman as "Wren", finds himself in need of someone with his brother's unique skill set. John agrees to help his sibling, and begins digging into the woman's background. Before he can locate her, however, a corpse fitting Wren's description is fished from the Hudson, rendering his brother a suspect in a brutal murder.

Inventive, nimble, and knowing, Spiegelman cements his position as one of today's most gifted mystery writers with the action rich, yet strangely cerebral, Red Cat. John March is intelligent, sensitive and empathetic, a thinking man's gumshoe who brings a fresh perspective to the mystery genre. March is totally consumed by the difficult case, which leads him into some pretty volatile terrain, both professional and personal, teaching him lessons about himself and about his brother, with whom he has little in common. Although she never appears in a speaking role in this novel, Wren is a powerful presence in the book, exerting a strong influence over the people around her, and, eventually over John, as he comes to appreciate her as a person.