Deep Six

May 16, 2016
Retired professional baseball player Jake Longly, the narrator of this entertaining if slight series launch set on Florida’s Gulf Coast from Lyle (Stress Factor and two other Dub Walker novels), has agreed to do a little surveillance work for his PI father, Ray. Jake’s first assignment is to take pictures of a cheating wife, but things get complicated when she’s murdered and her lover turns out to be the new husband of Jake’s ex-wife. When Jake, Ray, and Jake’s beautiful new girlfriend, screenwriter Nicole Jamison, investigate, they realize that there’s a connection to a local crime boss with some shady real estate plans. At times Lyle takes his Gulf Coast twist on Hiaasen and Dorsey too far (a pair of brothers named Darrell and Darnell is a joke that soon wears thin) and the ease with which Nicole falls into bed with Jake is a stretch, but the mix of quirky characters and some brutal acts of violence should offer plenty of grist for fans of the hard-boiled genre. Agent: Kimberly Cameron, Kimberly Cameron & Associates.

May 1, 2016
Lyle debuts a new series starring Jake Longly, former baseball player, now reluctant PI working for his father. Assigned to watch a wealthy woman believed to be having an affair, he quickly learns that her paramour is Jake's own ex-wife's new husband. Then the woman is murdered, and Jake, who has a mouth that speaks before his brain has time to think, finds himself in deep trouble. Readers who enjoy smart-mouthed PIs like Robert Crais' Elvis Cole will want to watch this series develop.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)