Seattle lawyer Matt Riordan is a mann for whom finding

out the troth is more than a prepositional responsibility, it s

a kind of curse. Even when Matt knows t would be better

for all concerned if he settled down and watched the sun

set from the perch of his lakeside cabin, he can t leave

well enough alone.

This time it begins with a picture on the back of a

postcard. Recently painted in amber watercolor, it shows

the head of a small bird emerging from a brass jar, almost

as if one were giving birth to the other.

The recipient of this enigmatic postcard is Lisa 1hayer,

an attractive young art dealer whose grandfather was a

famous painter of the Pacific Northwest School. Lisa is

convinced he painted the picture, but Lee Thayer died ten

years before, when his car spun off n cliff on a dark wet

night. If Thayer didn t paint that picture, an astonishingly

talented art forger is announcing himself to Lisa.

When Lisa asks Matt to investigate the origin of the

painting and find either a forger or her grandfather, he

knows that a postcard from a dead man can only mean

trouble. He also knows he should refuse to get involved.

But the possibility of spending more time with Lisa is too

tempting.

Matt s search for the forger leads him back fifty years

into the past, to a wild student party on a houseboat in

Portage Bay, where a beautiful and talented young woman

was murdered. Matt suspects there s a connection between

that crime, the death of Lee Thayer, and the picture

postcard. Before he finds the truth he will have to plunge

into the world of organized crime and high finance, defend

both Lisa and himself against grave danger, and see more

deaths added to a half-century of tragedy.

In Picture Postcard, Fredrick Huebner has written a

complex mystery of love and jealousy/; of long-kept secrets

and wasted gifts. It is a nevel distinguished by the same

depth of characterization, taut suspense, and evocative

atmosphere that earned him an Edgar nomination for his

previous mystery, Judgment by Fire.