[Alan Bernhardt 04] • Find Her a Grave

To honor a dying don’s last wish, a mob lieutenant searches for hidden diamonds

After seven years ruling his empire from prison, Don Carlo remains as powerful as ever, but his heart is beginning to fail. On the verge of death, he begs his right-hand man, Bacardo, to look after his family. Not his wife and children, the don explains, but Louise and Angela—his daughter and granddaughter from a beloved mistress who died long ago.

To Louise, the don bequeaths one million dollars in diamonds, hidden in a cemetery in a tiny California town. Securing her inheritance will mean mortal danger for Louise, Bacardo, and the private investigator they hire to help them—a moonlighting director named Alan Bernhardt. Bernhardt understands the risks, but also knows that the theater and the mafia have two things in common: the understanding that a professional is only as good as his word, and that the only way to survive is to act without fear.

From Publishers WeeklyIn the latest Alan Bernhardt mystery, following Except for the Bones , the San Francisco actor/director and part-time sleuth is absent for nearly the first third of the tale. By the time he comes on stage, an imprisoned mobster has died and secretly left behind some valuables to a woman named Louise, his daughter by a former mistress. The new capo de capo isn't glad to learn about this cache of jewels. Louise tells her 20-year-old daughter, Angela, that the mob may be looking for them and the legacy, which they have to dig up from its hiding place; Angela approaches Alan for help. In short order, suave Chinese killer, Brian Chin, is in on the doings as well. Wilcox, who also writes a series about a persistent San Francisco cop named Hastings, gradually establishes an authentic mobster milieu, offering the required mix of brutality and honor. The action accelerates as Alan, Angela and others trace their way through a series of betrayals and allegiances, including an abduction, but it all leads to a somewhat loosely tied ending. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus ReviewsCapo Carlo Venezzio dies of a heart attack while in prison, but not before he's ordered right-hand man Tony Bacardo to see that a million dollars' worth of diamonds has been salted away for his illegitimate daughter, Louise, and her daughter, Angela. To help Louise claim the jewels, hidden in a cemetery in tiny Fowler's Landing, California, Bacardo, now swearing allegiance to another don, Benito Cella, must tread carefully; meanwhile, a mafia soldier, Fabrese, is on his trail and wants the diamonds for himself, so Bacardo hotfoots it back to New York, telling the women to recover the jewels themselves. They call in part-time p.i. Alan Bernhardt (Except for the Bones, etc.), who witnesses a double- cross--which leads to a double-kidnapping. The mafia then reenters the picture, and Bernhardt must exert last-minute heroics to avert a bloodbath. A persuasive primer on the mafia's business methods and ethics. Old pro Wilcox characterizes the mobsters so deftly that his story suffers when it switches focus to Bernhardt. Flawed but clever. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.