Paul Kruger - Weave a Wicked Web

I'm getting perilously behind on my reviews...and it doesn't help that that several of them could be quickly summarized as "meh" or "okay". So today I'm going for a copy of noon-hour "quickies"...

Weave a Wicked Web is the second in a series of mysteries featuring Phil Kramer, a Colorado attorney. Kramer is retained at the beginning of the novel (by a young, beautiful and wealthy client, of course) to trace a red-headed woman named Kitty Bates. That's all the information the client, Stella Packard, is willing to give him and against his better judgment Kramer agrees to take on the job. Eventually Kramer ties in Kitty Bates with a news item about the discovery of the body of a red-headed woman in the vicinity of his client's home. Questioning his client, Kramer learns that Stella had made a blackmail payment to a woman identifying herself as Kitty Bates. The big problem; Kitty Bates was dead and in her improvised grave well before the blackmail attempt so who was the second Kitty Bates and how does the body tie in with the Packard family? It's an interesting set-up, but the problem I had with the novel is that eventually it seems that everyone was either cognizant of the blackmail or part of it, thereby lessening the impact of the story.


More information on the Phil Kramer series and its author can be found at the Thrilling Detective website.