Reviews of Time to Say Goodbye by Pat MacEnulty
Time
to Say Goodbye – This is my “noir” novel about
a suburban mom with some dark secrets in her past and the detective whose
mission it is to track her down.
Purchase online or order through your favorite bookstore.
Time to Say Goodbye Reviews
The
Times on January 28, 2006
Crime:
The Florida jigsaw massacre
Reviewed by Marcel Berlins
Time to Say Goodbye is not Pat MacEnulty’s first novel but it’s
her first try at crime fiction. It’s terrific. In 1978, a precocious
teenager, Vera Lee Gifford, escapes from prison after being found guilty
of three murders, including that of her lover’s wife. She changes
her life and name, and for 25 years lives in freedom and boring family
respectability. Detective Rodney Ellis is one of the few who recalls her
from time to time. He arrested her, a drugged-out girl in a bikini who
called him “Daddy” and claimed she could remember nothing of
the killings. In 2004 a quiet middle-aged maid is found bludgeoned to
death in a motel in Florida. Ellis discovers that she had been in prison
for murder at the same time as Vera Lee. An old boyfriend of Vera Lee‘s
reappears. Other connections come to light. The woman who thought herself
safe gradually becomes aware of her past closing in; first, as a trickle
of incidents, then a frightening rush. Ellis‘s inquiries bring him
closer to the solutions of crimes nearly 30 years apart. Time to Say Goodbye
is perfectly paced as the jigsaw puzzle of Vera Lee‘s is slowly assembled.
The climax is reached during a vicious Florida storm. Riveting.
Independent
on Sunday January 15, 2006
Reviewewd by Mark
Timlin
It‘s always a treat to discover an author who is unfamiliar but proves
to be great from the get-go. Pat MacEnulty is one such. From the first
sentence I knew that Time to Say Goodbye was going to be a read-in-one-go
novel and I was right. Three murders in Florida echo down almost 30 years
to the present. Three murders supposedly committed by a teenage girl who
has made a new life for herself after escaping from prison. A secret life
that‘s about to be blown apart, and only one man can help. The cop
who arrested her all those years ago. And he does as a huge storm hits
Palm Beach. This is cracking novel well worth seeking out. First Class.
The
Pitshanger Bookshop
A well-written thriller that treads a time-honoured path but has plenty
of interesting detours and thrills along the way. It tells the story of
a suburban wife and mother with a deadly past and the detective who is
determined to find out the truth. When a motel maid in Gainesville, Florida,
is brutally murdered, Detective Rodney Eills believes the crime may be
linked to three 25-year-old murders. Later, when another woman disappears,
Eills discovers a connection that his superiors don‘t want him to
pursue. Working on his own time, Eills follows a lead to a shady dealer
in North Carolina. Another kidnapping takes him back to Florida and into
the eye of a hurricane, where he must battle the elements to save lives.
Very tropically topical.
DIVA,
February 2006
By Sarah-Jane
TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
by Pat MacEnulty p/back, Serpent‘s Tail, £8.99
Pat MacEnulty‘s debut Sweet Fire was a blistering semi-autobiographical
tale of a 17 year old junkie sucking herself and her friends into a vortex
of cheap sex, drugs and destruction. Her second novel is an equally memorable
story packed with razor-sharp dialogue, jet-black humour and scenes that
linger long after you‘ve read them. Her protagonist Patsy Palmer
is an ex-grifter and convicted murderer that‘s reinvented herself
as a successful real estate broker. Her suburban neighbours and family
have no idea that she escaped from prison in 1976 or that her birth name
is actually Vera Lee Gifford and that‘s the way she intends things
to remain. Back in Florida however, a motel maid has been discovered murdered
and the detective in charge just happens to be the same honest, warm-hearted
cop that served on Patsy‘s investigation. Determined to get to the
bottom of both cases, he hits the road and starts to piece things together.
Perfectly punctuated with rich drama and powerful cinematic imagery, Time
To Say Goodbye is a first rate crime noir with more twists and turns than
a rollercoaster. It‘s also essential reading for film directors looking
for a sure-fire hit to adapt for the silver screen.
Tangled
Web UK Review February 2006
Bob Cornwell
Pat MacEnulty‘s first book, Sweet Fire, about a sympathetic junkie‘s
search for redemption, gathered in the accolades back in 2003. After The
Language of Sharks (2004), an equally acclaimed volume of short stories,
this is her first out-and-out crime novel. And a fresh, heart-felt and
often poignant one it is too.
Ex-Vietnam veteran Detective Rodney Ellis of the Gainesville, North Florida police force, is a weary man. His ex-partner Willie Price is dying of cancer; he himself is tired of filing reports, tired of “day in day out mayhem”, tired, whilst investigating the murder of Thelma Jackson, a middleaged motel maid, of talking to “broken-hearted mothers”. As he investigates he comes across some current echoes (a face from the past, a mention of a rare gun) of a still-disturbing case from his early years as a police officer, a 16 year-old girl tried and convicted of a triple murder. Echoes perhaps, which, if investigated, in his own time if need be, might throw new light on both past and present...
Rodney is a substantial, multi-faceted character in a book overflowing with them. Along with the purple-haired Twyla, the police records clerk with a master‘s degree in English, or Lanelle, Rodney‘s new Buddha-like female partner, there is clearly material here for a series. Even more distinctive is the key plot strand introduced early in the book centred around Patsy Palmer, a successful real estate saleswoman from land-locked Charlotte, North Carolina. She is outwardly confident, happily married with two great kids. But with an abiding fear of water and a strange line in bedtime stories, clearly not all is as it seems. Plagued, in fact, by disjointed memories of her damaged former life, Patsy senses that her carefully created suburban existence is about to come apart at the seams.
As MacEnulty‘s credible, well-structured and unerringly paced plot unfolds (Rodney‘s investigation cleverly filling in many, though not all, of the gaps in Patsy‘s memory), a complex portrait emerges of an ill-starred woman drawing on her own considerable mental strength to preserve all that she holds dear whilst struggling to evade the clutches of the past. The book‘ıs climax in a Florida hurricane, as key elements of the plot finally and movingly coalesce, is outstanding.
Let‘s hope there will be more where this came from. Meanwhile I‘m off to check out Sweet Fire, also from Serpent‘s Tail.
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