High Fall - Kiernan O'Shaugnessy, Bk 2 Author:Susan Dunlap When Kiernan O'Shaughnessy shows up at the San Diego Gliderport to watch the filming of a new movie, she hardly expects to run into a media circus. It turns out that a talented, confident nineteen-year-old stuntwoman named Lark Sondervoil has invited the press to watch her perform the Gaige Move - a notoriously difficult stunt, or "gag," invente... more »d years earlier by a master gymnast named Greg Gaige. Gaige was killed in the middle of a stunt ten years earlier, and no one has ever performed up to his extraordinary standard. Until now... Expectations are high. But nobody - not the press, not the film crew, certainly not Kiernan herself - expects Lark's move to turn into disaster when she takes a misstep and plunges over the bluffs to her death. The filmmakers insist it's merely an accident - an occupational hazard of being in a dangerous profession. But Kiernan's curiosity about this case moves beyond the mere interests of justice. She had studied gymnastics herself once, long ago. And her teacher was none other than ... Greg Gaige. As Kiernan relentlessly dogs the people who knew Lark, and who remember Greg, she exposes the darker side of the movie business. And she's forced to confront both the grim realities of the present, and the painful, half-buried ghosts of her past.
BookList
Nineteen-year-old movie stuntwoman Lark Sondervoil vows to be the first person in 10 years to attempt the "Gaige move," named for the late legendary stuntman Greg Gaige. Private eye Kiernan O'Shaughnessy, who once studied gymnastics with Gaige, arrives to watch the filming of Sondervoil's stunt. It goes wrong. Sondervoil misses her mark and plunges off a cliff to her death. Outraged to learn the fall was captured on film and will probably be used in an upcoming film, Kiernan decides to find out what went wrong. The trail leads back a decade to a botched fireball stunt, a misidentified body, and a string of self-serving Hollywood types to whom life and death are merely factors in who gets the next starring vehicle. This satisfying mystery nicely balances an extraordinarily unflattering vision of show biz and its denizens with Kiernan's grounded, real-world morality and sense of justice. Crisp plotting and a memorable heroine add to the fun.« less