Liquid Smoke

May 30, 2011
Shelby's searing third Noah Braddock novel (after 2006's Wicked Break) takes the San Diego surfer and PI into a heartbreaking, life-changing case of loss and discovery. Lawyer Darcy Gill, staunch opponent of capital punishment, wants Braddock to meet death row inmate Russell Simington, who happens to be Braddock's father, whom he's never known. Both best friend Carter Hamm and girlfriend Liz Santangelo, an SDPD homicide detective, advise the reluctant Braddock to see Simington. An emotional meeting at San Quentin with the confessed, unremorseful killer starts Braddock on a rocky journey with only the name Landon Keene as a signpost until the first dead body appears. Braddock gets sucked into the bleak world of casinos and human smuggling and contract murders his father inhabited, with deadly results. Shelby pulls no punches in this raw confrontation between a stone-cold killer and a man pushed beyond the brink.

July 1, 2011

At the beginning of a bleak February in San Diego, Noah, an independent, surfer PI, is feeling fairly content; alas, his life is in tatters by the 28th. Shelby's third entry (after Wicked Break) catches you from the first wave, when Noah learns his father, whom he has never met, is on San Quentin's Death Row. After the woman who told Noah about his father turns up dead, Noah is compelled to pursue a past he's always chosen to ignore. Soon Noah is crisscrossing San Diego's inner realms, fighting with local casino thugs and trying not to panic Mexican immigrants in El Centro, who'd just as soon have him go away. Noah's first-person narrative makes his confusion very personal, and the fear factor ratchets up with each chapter. VERDICT With plenty of twists and a startling, compelling pace, this mystery will make readers hope Noah finds some justice in the bad set he's inherited. Hard-boiled but not quite as noir as Don Winslow or Kem Nunn, Shelby's book will appeal to Robert Crais fans for the sense of place and the lonely world the protagonists occupy.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2011
In the third Noah Braddock novel (following Wicked Break, 2006), the San Diego private investigator is enjoying an uncharacteristically calm period in his life. His relationship with his alcoholic mother has quieted down, and he's finally let himself take the romantic plunge with his girlfriend, police detective Liz Santangelo. All Noah really wants to do right now is hit the beach with his surfboard, but Darcy Gill, a very persistent young appellate lawyer, has other plans. She's got a job for Noah: to help her keep a death-row inmate alive. And here's the twist: the convicted murderer claims to be Noah's father. Noah begrudgingly agrees to meet with the man, but he soon wishes he hadn't, especially when Darcy turns up dead. Now Noah, who loves a good mystery almost as much as he loves a good wave, can't turn back. Like the first two Braddock novels, this one is very smartly written, with a likable narrator-hero and an appealing cast of supporting characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)