His humor, drier than a perfect martini, his demeanor cooler than a bass saxophone, tough enough to win over the mob, cops and media, Nicky Toscani is the perfect ladies man- handsome, smart, a two-fisted straight-shooting-detective who finds himself haunted by the elusive presence of the murder victim in his latest case. As he moves through her Victorian trying to assemble a sense of who she was to discover who might have murdered her, he finds he is drawn to the specter of the woman that begins emerging from all these different sources. Even though there are disturbing elements of opportunism and manipulation hinted at in the hauntingly beautiful portrait by Royo, hanging above her fireplace, he soon realizes he has fallen in love with a dead woman.
“Never has a woman been so desirable, so electric, and so dangerous to know!” Nicky would confide to me later। If I were to throw an analytical spin onto Nicky’s
commentary, I would say that he presents an interesting metaphor for the objectification or idealization of the female subject. This is, however, immediately given a strange twist, given the fact that Robin O'Hara herself was not a sweet, demure, die-away woman.
In reviewing the rough draft and notes of the case given me by Nicky Toscani, and in reading the anecdotes related by her friends, Robin O'Hara was strong and determined and when she does “appear” to Nicky, she is far from being compliant.
