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The Whole Truth

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Overview

"Nancy Pickard pushes at the presumed limits of [crime fiction]" said the Los Angeles Times Book Review, praising the award-winning creator of the Jenny Cain mysteries. Now, Pickard blurs the line between fiction and reality in a novel of gripping intensity, and premieres a superb new heroine: true-crime author Marie Lightfoot. For her next surefire bestseller, Marie is covering the trial of a Florida killer -- a case that penetrates her own life, layer by disturbing layer.

Whether real like Ted Bundy, or imagined like Hannibal Lecter, few killers of our time are in the same league as Raymond Raintree. And as he stands flanked by lawyers in a Florida courtroom, waiting to be convicted for the murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, Marie Lightfoot is taking it all in. A small, gutsy blonde renowned for her true-crime bestsellers, Marie knows the graphic and disturbing case will make her best book yet -- because Raintree's shocking crime, vile beyond imagining, is also impossible to turn away from. But there is something about the case -- and Raintree's involvement -- that bothers her.

Editorial Reviews

In a sensational change of pace, Anthony Award-winner Pickard sets aside her Jenny Cain series (Twilight, Confession, etc.) for a fast-moving thriller that literally starts with a bang. True-crime writer Marie Lightfoot is covering the murder trial of Raymond Raintree, accused of kidnapping and killing, and extracting the pineal gland of, a six-year-old girl in Maria's hometown of Bahia Beach, Fla. When convicted, Raintree charges the judge, who whips out a pistol and shoots him. Feigning unconsciousness, Raintree manages to escape. The story then seamlessly alternates between Marie's narration of the manhunt for Raintree and chapters of Marie's book, The Little Mermaid, about the background to the trial. Raintree is a cipher, a seemingly illiterate but clever outcast with no past. Pickard delves deeply into the personality and psyche of this repellent yet sympathetic monster who was kidnapped and abused as a child. After finding and arresting the fugitive, the police never question the anomalies in the case (how could an uneducated man perform a delicate surgical procedure ) nor do they respond to calls from a retired Kansas sheriff who believes Raintree is John Kepler, who was kidnapped 22 years ago. Because of her fame, Marie is contacted by Kepler's parents, and the course of the novel shifts dramatically as Marie becomes personally involved. Mrs. Kepler's wish to see her son again spurs the frightening climax to this stunning synthesis of psychological suspense and commentary on our culture of celebrity. Featured alternate of the Mystery Guild; 9-city author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Nancy Pickard

Nancy Pickard, the acclaimed creator of the Jenny Cain series, is a two-time Edgar Award nominee and winner of the Agatha, Macavity, Anthony, and American Mystery awards. A great fan of Virginia Rich's books, Nancy Pickard is the co-author, with Mrs. Rich, of The 27-Ingredient Chili con Carne Murders and author of The Blue Corn Murders. The late Virginia Rich was the author of three previous Eugenia Potter mysteries and, with Nancy Pickard, of The 27-Ingredient Chili con Carne Murders. Like her heroine, Mrs. Rich lived on a cattle ranch in Arizona and also had a cottage off the coast of Maine.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Atria

Filesize

521.61 KB

Number of Pages

439

eBook ISBN

9780743418041

Awards

  • Edgar Awards (Edgar Allan Poe Awards)
  • Macavity Award

Excerpt from: The Whole Truth by Nancy Pickard

Chapter One: Raymond

The courthouse in downtown Bahia Beach, Florida, seems a pale, cool place to hold the evidence of so much passion. Divorces. Rape. Murders. Arson. Assault. Abuse of all kinds, by all sorts of people, upon all sorts of people. Daily, it parades past these bland, blond walls of the Howard County Courthouse, in Florida's Twenty-first Judicial Circuit. This is a place of stark contrasts and painful paradoxes, of quiet ironies and violent surprises. Outside the long narrow windows of the courthouse, the south Florida sun burns hot enough to scorch a tourist's skin, but inside, it's all shade and air-conditioning.

My fingertips feel dipped in ice water as I write these words.

They seem to promise a surprise or shock of some kind, although nobody in this courtroom is expecting one. We're expecting the jury to deliver a guilty verdict today, and we're all expecting to troop back in here in a couple of weeks to hear this same jury recommend the death penalty.

And yet, my own words seem to foreshadow something else.

Strange, but I don't have any idea of what that could be.

For the ten days of the trial of Raymond Raintree for the kidnapping and murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, I have scribbled notes with stiff, cold fingers. Now, as we await the verdict, I press my fingers into my palms to warm them, before moving my pen again. I'm not using a laptop because the soft tapping of fingers on keyboards drives the judge crazy, and so she has forbidden computers.

Judge Edyth Flasschoen's courtroom -- number three, second floor -- is especially chilly, because she keeps the thermostat turned down exceptionally low. It's so cold in here I can smell the air-conditioning, a metallic aroma that gets up in my nose and stays there until I overpower it with garlic for lunch from one of the restaurants down on Bahia Boulevard. The judge takes good care of her jurors, though: no air-conditioning blows directly on them.

High on her bench, seated in her brown leather chair on rollers, the judge taps her microphone with a pink fingernail. She's a tough old broad, sixty-two years old, with a beauty-shop hairdo and the metabolism of a Florida mosquito. When I interviewed her for the true crime book I'm writing about this case, she said, "It's always too damned hot to suit me. I could go naked under my robes, and I'd still sweat like a pig in the brush."