The Devil She Knows

Starred review from March 14, 2011
Loehfelm delivers on the promise of his first two crime novels, Fresh Kills and Bloodroot, with this terrific drama about a barmaid who tangles with a sadistic and well-connected killer. When 29-year-old Maureen Coughlin catches her boss, Dennis, in a sexual tryst with a local politician, Frank Sebastian, early one morning after her shift at the Narrows, a Staten Island bar, Maureen tries to forget what she saw. But the discovery of Dennis's body later that day on nearby train tracks ensures that she can't put the incident behind her. Sebastian begins to stalk Maureen, leaving threatening messages and sending men to break into her house. With the help of aging detective Nat Waters, who has some secrets of his own, Maureen tries to fight back. Loehfelm expertly ramps up the suspense, taking the reader on a dark ride, not just through the seedier side of Staten Island but into Nat Waters's own past, when he and Sebastian were young cops. Author tour.