The Other Romanian

January 6, 2014
Darryl Ponicsan, whose The Last Detail became an acclaimed film vehicle for Jack Nicholson, successfully returns to the PI genre with the fourth mystery he's written under the Argula pseudonym featuring a Seattle gumshoe named Quinn (after 2009's Krapp's Last Cassette). Quinn, who is dealing with the onset of menopause, had been a cop in L.A. and Spokane, but now works on her own. Her usual state of self-doubt is interrupted by a call from the Seattle PD; a man's been bludgeoned and then shot to death, with no signs of his identityâexcept for a matchbook with Quinn's number written inside. She responds to the scene to find the victim is a stranger to her as well, and the business name on the matchbook, the Copper Gate, is unfamiliar. Quinn soon hears from the wife of a former client, a screenwriter who believes that her missing spouse might still be aliveâand gets a text from another man she doesn't know stating that "Stefano must die! Again!" The plot strands are integrated nicely, and the author makes the most of his fair weatherâchallenged setting ("This was in early November, the onset of despair up here on the left corner of the map").