The Fig Eater

by Jody Shields

A brutal killing takes place in a Vienna park in 1910, and the wife of the inspector assigned to the case decides that the key to the murderer involves the figs the victim ate shortly before her death--because fresh figs are not available in Vienna. Jody Shields thoroughly researched detection techniques from the period, as well as the food and cuisine of Vienna, to produce a literary mystery that spins off from Freud's famous case of Dora, the depressed and misunderstood young woman involved in a psychological battle of wills with her father.

Editions of The Fig Eater

ISBN 9781568959610	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Wheeler Pub Inc	Date 2001	Price $1.00	Good
ISBN 9780316785648	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Little Brown & Co	Date 2000	Price $1.00	Good
ISBN 9780316785266	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Back Bay Books	Date 2001	Price $1.00	Used, Good
ISBN 9781570428562	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Hachette Audio	Date 2000	Price $2.87	unabridged audio book

Publisher Notes

In twentieth-century Vienna, a police inspector investigates the brutal murder of a beautiful young girl, while his Hungarian wife and a teenage English governess pursue their own probe into the case, convinced that the figs found in the victim's stomach during the autopsy are a clue to the killer's identity.

Media Reviews

"Through overlapping perspectives, Ms. Shields flashes dazzling stereopticon slides of a city floating between opposites: the fading 19th century and the bustling 20th, the analytical male point of view and the intuitive female, the scientific and the superstitious. Ms. Shields has a powerful gift for poetic and painterly imagery. Her startling scenes, rich in metaphor, linger long in memory. But this often beautifully written book floats also between mystery and gothic and in the end opts for the second, which will not please those who expect a book to begin and end in the same genre."

First Line

He stands up next to the girl's body. He looks down for a moment, then carefully steps over the narrow boards lying around it. He walks across the grass and joins the three men, waiting like mourners. No one speaks. The body is poised like a still life waiting for a painter.

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