Wrong Light

October 8, 2018
A mysterious stalker known as Pluto is fixated on sultry-voiced Naomi, the star of a radio talk show based in San Diego, Calif., in Coyle’s suspenseful if flawed fifth novel featuring PI Rick Cahill (after 2017’s Blood Truth). Naomi doesn’t take Pluto’s threats seriously, but Rick does when someone breaks into Naomi’s car and steals her pistol and the car’s registration. Rick’s attempts to protect her are sidetracked when Tatiana Volkov, the daughter of a Russian mafia boss, who has a hold over him from an earlier book, orders him to stake out mobster Peter Stone’s house daily from dusk until midnight. If he refuses or fails, Tatiana will have him killed. It makes no sense, but he has no choice. Rick asks fellow PI Moira MacFarlane to cover Naomi while he watches Stone. The Stone surveillance takes several puzzling turns that portend nothing good for Cahill, and the body count rises as a killer closes in on Naomi. Distinctive characters and a powerful narrative compensate for the implausibly complex plot of this grim tale. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Assoc.

September 15, 2018
Naomi Hendrix has a late-night talk-radio show in Southern California and an ocean of lonely guys addicted to her breathy voice. Don't fight the lonely night, she purrs. Of course, there's a snake in the garden, a fruitcake convinced, Our hearts are twinned. Then the threat. If Naomi doesn't mention him on air, it will awaken my rage. The station manager consults Coyle's reluctant PI hero, Rick Cahill. Readers will be anticipating a fine, creepy tour of obsession frosted with confrontations and hairbreadth escapes, but that's not exactly what they get. Cahill is dogged by second thoughts, sometimes rightly so: honoring a promise to one source means another is killed. But the narrative is frequently stalled, and that may be the author's plan. He's not really writing a private-eye novel, where the good guys, however battered, finally win. No, this is an exercise in pure noir, with chaos at the end as well as the beginning. The dead are still dead, and there's no end to the pain. For the Jim Thompson crowd, who want their noir straight, no chaser.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)