The Second Girl

March 7, 2016
PI Frank Marr, the narrator of this highly original noir from Swinson (A Detailed Man), has a big problem: he’s a cocaine addict. When the former Washington, D.C., police detective breaks into a house in search of a stash he hopes to score, he finds Amanda Meyer, who can’t be more than 15, chained to the floor in the bathroom. Instead of calling 911 or taking Amanda to the hospital, per standard police procedure, he delivers the girl to his sometime employer and lover, attorney Leslie Costello, who ensures that the teenager is reunited with her parents. Frank becomes a hero, and Leslie refers him to another set of parents seeking help in locating their missing daughter, 16-year-old Miriam Gregory. As he searches for Miriam, Frank must spin an ever-murkier web of lies to conceal his activities from his friends and the authorities. Frank constantly makes bad choices, and Swinson keeps the outcome in doubt to the end. He also does a fine job portraying the varied neighborhoods of contemporary Washington. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider/ICM.

April 1, 2016
Old habits die hard, and sometimes cause collateral damage, in this character-driven crime story. Retired D.C. cop Frank Marr works as a private investigator. He's a pro at the job but uses it as a means to fuel his drug addiction. While looting a house of its stash--he had it under surveillance for just this reason--he finds a kidnapped girl, and doing the right thing threatens to unravel the life he's built. Author Swinson, himself a former D.C. police detective, brings the neighborhood and its criminal underworld to gritty life and gives the drug trade's handoffs and turf disputes an insider's intimate view. Marr is a compelling mess, saving the day not once but twice while constantly checking his nostrils for powder residue or the odd trickle of blood. When it suits his purpose (or covers his hobby) he'll take a life, but the lines he will or will not cross seem to be in constant motion, and that unpredictability keeps the tension high. Threats from some who know Marr's "early retirement" was a de facto firing don't cow him so much as push him to rebel. If the bad guys kill first and worry about the details later, doesn't justice require someone equally unconstrained to take them on? Marr may be a disaster on legs, but he gets inside a reader's head with ease; when he leaves someone to die then doubles back with second thoughts, it's shocking to note how infectious his perspective is. The ethical questions about his lifestyle aren't settled here, so it's good news that this is merely an introduction to a character who plans to return. An auspicious, and gleefully amoral, series debut.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 1, 2016
Retired Washington, D.C., narcotics detective (and coke addict) Frank Marr is robbing a stash house when he finds a kidnapped girl held captive in the bathroom. He can't take her to the police without explaining why he was in the house, so he takes her to defense attorney Leslie Costello's office and hightails it back to the house to finish cleaning out the crew's drugs. As Frank dodges the detectives investigating Amanda Meyer's kidnapping, Costello makes it clear that the only way Frank can atone for landing her in the middle of the investigation is to agree to look for another girl who has gone missing from Amanda's neighborhood. So Frank is forced into his personal nightmare of a juggling act, using his narcotics-squad sting tactics to find an informant who can lead him to the pimps orchestrating the kidnappings, all the while keeping his addiction hidden from his police contacts. Frank Marr turns the PI mold on its head; he's an addict with a self-serving vigilante streak. But he's also a pretty decent guy deep down who works the streets with expertise, and readers will be fascinated by the day-in-the-life perspective of an unrepentant cocaine addict. A gritty knockout debut that screams for a series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2016

Longtime addict Frank Marr was a decorated police detective in Washington, DC. Now two years after his retirement, he works sporadically as a private investigator to support his drug habit. Leslie, a defense attorney and Marr's occasional bedfellow, keeps him on retainer to investigate cases for her clients. But one day when Marr's stash of drugs runs low, he discovers a teenage girl in a closet while canvasing a local gang's safe house for illicit drugs. Upon delivering the abducted girl to Leslie, Marr is hired by a family from the suburbs of Virginia to investigate the disappearance of another girl--who has a connection to the first girl. VERDICT Swinson (A Detailed Man) delivers an excellent addition to the noir genre as he unveils layer after layer of his gritty protagonist. Readers of Dennis Lehane and Richard Price as well as fans of The Wire will appreciate the bleak description of inner-city Washington, DC.--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016

In a debut folks at Little, Brown are cheering, decorated Washington, DC, police detective Frank Marr has retired early. He's hiding his drug addiction, a secret that might come out after he rescues a kidnapped girl he chances upon at a drug gang's den and is proclaimed a hero. Swinson himself is a retired DC police detective; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.