Gumshoe [Paperback]

USA Todaybest-selling author

For nine long days, the mayor and district attorney of Reno, Nevada, have been missing. Vanished without a trace. Their vehicles were found parked side-by-side at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Did they fly somewhere together? They aren t on any flight manifest. Did the two of them take off with a big pile of the city s money? If so, the city accountants can t find it. Were they murdered? There s no sign of foul play. Their disappearances have finally made national news.

Enter Mortimer Angel, who d just quit a thankless job as an IRS agent. Mort is Reno s newest gumshoe, a private-eye-in-training at his nephew s detective agency. Just four hours into his new career, Mort finds the mayor make that, the mayor s head in the trunk of Mort s ex-wife s Mercedes. The news-hungry media speculates: Did Mort kill the mayor? Did Mort s ex? As events begin to spin out of control, Mort realizes things have been out of control since the night before he started his new career, the night he found the unknown naked blonde in his bed.

For the first third of this novel, readers are likely to wonder, along with hero Mort Angel, just what theyre getting into. Mort is a former IRS agent seeking to reinvent himself as a PI. He and his author push all the buttons. Hes solitary, he drinks too much, he banters with hookers. Is this a parody? An homage? A clumsy attempt to have it both ways? Hard to tell, even when Leininger has Mort, just like Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, come home to find a gorgeous naked woman in his bed. Then Mort is asked to solve a couple of grisly murders; he pairs with a female PI, who is also a judo champ, and the mood darkens beautifully. She teaches him how to be a real detective, not the storybook version, by making him sit in a library and read dull documents until his eyes burn. Theyre drawn into a story of madness, incest, and revenge that ends in a stunning set piece that roars for nealҬ