Past Tense - John Marshall Tanner, Bk 12 Author:Stephen Greenleaf San Francisco investigator John Marshall Tanner attempts to find out why his best friend, who also happens to be a cop, shoots a man accused of sexually abusing his daughter and why similar crimes continue to occur in other courtrooms around the city. — Amazon.com — Unlike some series writers who hit their peak early and then coast on past triumph... more »s for the next dozen books, Stephen Greenleaf goes from strength to strength, stretching the boundaries of the genre without giving up its traditional values. His detective, Marsh Tanner, grows and changes with each outing, keeping our interest alive. In his latest, Tanner has to deal with a nasty mixture of sexual abuse and the controversy surrounding recovered memory. Greenleaf brings it all home in a scene where Tanner is playing with his baby daughter. "I was having a wonderful time until it occurred to me that at some point it would become wrong. At some point putting her on my lap, or letting her flop on my belly, or tickling her ribs and itching her nose and playing piggy with her toes will be inappropriate and even harmful, at least in the view of some. How was I supposed to know when that time had come?"
Library Journal
The 12th John Marshall Tanner novel lives up to the tradition of excellence found in Greenleaf's recent Flesh Wounds (Scribner, 1996). San Francisco-based investigator Tanner tries to discover why his best friend, Charley Sleet -- a police officer who is one of the best men he's ever known -- shoots the defendant in a sexual abuse case involving incest, killing him in an open courtroom. As Tanner trails Sleet, trying to understand his shocking and dramatic change of character, he links him to subsequent murders. Living people populate this book. Tanner himself -- moody, witty, and appealing -- reveals his own dramas, ruminating and extemporizing on life's issues as he seeks out the mysteries of the human heart in a quest to save his friend from himself. Moving and full of valuable insights, this book belongs in all general collections. --Michelle Foyt, Berlin-Peck Memorial Lib., Kensington, Ct.« less