The Father's Club (Suburban Detective) - Hardcover

Katz, Jon

3.36

53 ratings by Goodreads

9780385479219: The Father's Club (Suburban Detective)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385479212 ISBN 13: 9780385479219

Publisher: Doubleday, 1996

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Hired to investigate a once dutiful father turned deadbeat dad, detective and family man Kit Deleeuw finds himself embroiled with mobsters, federal investigators, and the victim's personal life after the man turns up dead in his office. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo. Tour.

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Review:

When one of the members of a fathers' support group is murdered, Kit Deleeuw, a nice, modest private eye from a nice, not-so-modest New Jersey suburb, becomes its newest member. While every member of the group was involved--in one way or another--with the dead man's reckless real estate schemes and is a prime suspect, Deleeuw finds he has no trouble opening up to the group about his own domestic problems. With his scholar wife buried in books and his moody adolescent son locked in his room, he finds sympathetic ears and good counsel, and returns even as he closes in on the killer.

From the Publisher:

As the Atlanta Constitution said of Jon Katz, he is "more Cheever than Chandler...his true literary purpose is chronicling the cultural phenomena that abound beyond the city limits." In his latest Suburban Detective novel, that cultural phenomenon is the plight of men in the 90s, caught in a world full of pressure, difficult choices, and the struggle to build and maintain friendships. But for the men in The Father's Club it is also a world fraught with betrayal, greed, and massive fraud--not to mention murder.

Kit Deleeuw is feeling embattled himself in his dual role of detective and family man: His son is in trouble at school, his wife is away much of the time, and, having seen too much of the dark side of suburban life, he worries about becoming one of those men with too many acquaintances and too few friends.

Into the midst of this slough of despond walks Linda Lewis, who wants Kit to investigate her ex-husband, Dale. Normally a dutiful father, Dale has fallen behind in his child support payments, and he hasn't called the kids, or responded to Linda's messages in long enough to have her worried. When the deadbeat Dad turns up dead in his office, Kit decides to join the men's club Dale belonged to, hoping for a clue to his demise.

In the end, Kit finds himself not only involved with mobsters, federal investigators, and a cool young mistress, but also a lot wiser about the need men have to talk to one another, about his relationship with his son, and about his own place in the child-crazed town of Rochambeau.

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