As this book opens Roman Carruthers is heading from Atlanta to his hometown in Virginia. His father owns a mortuary and he has just been severely injured and is in a coma. Roman, or Rome, is a successful agent for celebrities and he hasn’t been home in a while. His sister Neveah has been running the mortuary with their dad.
They have another sibling, Dante, who has essentially checked out. He’s heavily into drugs. This is a story about secrets. Their mother vanished years ago. She had been having an affair and Neveah seems convinced that when their father found out about it he killed her and disposed of her corpse through cremation.
When Rome arrives on the scene he learns there’s a violent gang war taking place. Dante is in debt to one gang. A drug deal gone bad. The gang wants their money and Rome decides to try to negotiate with them. There are lots of killers in this story and some of them are the good guys. You won’t be able to put this book down.
Readers of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series might recall her protagonist in this one. Mrs. Blossom has worked for Tess Monaghan’s detective agency in Baltimore. She is adept at following people without getting noticed. She believes her skill at not being observed is mostly due to the fact that she’s a fairly nondescript older woman. She blends right in.
Mrs. Blossom has been widowed for a while. She was living out west with her daughter’s family when her son-in-law got a job in Japan. They headed west without Mrs. Blossom who moved back to Baltimore where she then picked up a lottery ticket someone discarded in a parking lot. Yep, it was a winner.
With her millions Mrs. Blossom decides to go on a luxury cruise along the River Seine in France. As she is heading over there she meets a charming older man on the plane. She had been upgraded to the first class cabin. This guy is being super sweet to her. He even gives her a THC gummy to help her doze on the flight.
She meets up with a woman she has known since grade school. A divorcee, her friend is husband hunting. This situation creates distinct vulnerabilities. I’m not going to give away any more. Suffice it to say that she tries to solve a murder. There’s a mysterious stolen art object. The other passengers on the river cruise would have made Agatha Christie proud. This story is a complete delight.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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