The Unforgiving Minutes

Police officer Otto Peter Brichter is an outstanding detective, though socially awkward. An investigation of a local crime ring brings him to Tretower Ranch, where he meets Nick Tellios and his niece, Katherine McLeod Price. Kori, as she is called, is a young reclusive woman whose primary interest is in the horses on the ranch. Brichter falls head over heels in love with her, but the trauma of her parents’ murder as a young child still haunts her and makes her distant. As Brichter’s investigation continues, he finds that Tellios is linked to the local organized crime syndicate, and that Tellios is exploiting Kori and keeping her a virtual prisoner. When Kori is kidnapped, the evidence increasingly points to Tellios being behind it. Brichter finds that this is just the beginning of a mystery with far-reaching implications, some of which go back to the unsolved killing of Kori’s parents. In her prequel to the wonderful Murder at the War, Mary Monica Pulver has exceeded herself. The Unforgiving Minutes is a spine-tingling thriller, and the characters are brilliantly developed. I loved every page. -Elizabeth Peters Fascinating characters fill the novel…. The reader will feel satisfied by the gripping ending in the second mystery by Pulver. I hope she has a third story in the works. -Houston Chronicle The second in a highly unusual, exceptionally erudite mystery series…[Brichter’s] transformation…is handled with a seamless artistry and a narrative finesse. -Minneapolis Star Tribune