This was a book I read somewhere between 1995-1999, but no idea when it was published. Here’s what I remember:
It was an action/adventure-type book. I know it was one of a series, but no idea where it falls in with the others.
What I remember is someone getting killed (possibly beheaded, but at least had their throat cut) in a peculiar manor. I seem to recall that the room where this murder took place was filled with steam or smoke. Someone had rigged a tape measure (a retractable one) - possibly sharpening the sides of the retractable tape - that released at a certain point. When it retracted, it slashed the major blood vessels in the neck, killing the victim.
I think there may have been a subplot involving a serial killer, and it had a magical/mystical theme.
I’m thinking it took place in California.
That’s pretty much all I remember. The tape measure death stuck with me, but I can’t find a context for it.
Heh. The method used in that story is strangulation, not, uh, slicing. But I do get a kick out of a homey little Miss Marple story being described as an action-adventure.
Heh. That sounds like something Tim Dorsey’s character Serge Storms would set up, but he’s based in Florida, not California, and doesn’t really have a magical theme.
That’s certainly possible. I don’t remember enough of the overall novel to be able to say for sure.
Little bit more info:
The protagonist is in a house where people are dying in strange ways (hence the aforementioned tape measure). If I remember correctly, he’s trying to both keep other people in the house from dying while simultaneously trying to figure out who is killing them, and why.
Unfortunately, I haven’t read the “Repairman Jack” books, but since I know they involve supernatural events and thriller type plotting, it seemed like a reasonable guess. If you’re sure of the year you read the book, I think only one or two of the Jack books had been published at that point, so that would narrow it down.
