Shell Games

July 1, 2003
In recent years, mystery writers seem to have entered a secret contest to see who could come up with the best variant on the traditional detective heroes: cops or ex-cops (usually wounded or traumatized) turned private eyes. Russell should walk off with the award for far and away the most inventive new detective hero--an ex-DEA agent who now heads a covert special operations unit of the California Department of Fish and Game. Lieutenant Marquez's job is to protect wildlife, but two discoveries--a slew of empty abalone shells and the bodies of two murdered divers--propel Marquez back into his narc-fighting days. Behind the empty shells and the slain divers is a drug runner making big money smuggling abalone. The plot moves, credibly and intriguingly, from Marquez's bewildering discovery to a fight for his own life as the drug lord hunts him down. A first-rate start to a projected series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)