Liquid Smoke Reveals a Dark Mystery
Noah Braddock is not your typical private investigator, which means he is very much of a noir hero. He is drawn into situations he would rather avoid, and as he reluctantly follows his hunches, he learns how much he has to lose. And lose he does in the latest Noah Braddock mystery, Liquid Smoke.
Author Jeff Shelby presents us with a Noah who has seen better days, but is emotionally in a good place. His relationship with a police detective is on solid ground after some shaky experiences, and he learns that he truly loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Living on the beach and sharing his life with the woman he loves (and his surfboards) couldn’t be more idyllic. The man is finally happy.
Then he meets Darcy Gill, a lawyer who draws him into the case of a man facing the death penalty for the cold-blooded killing of two men. The bait? The man is the father he never knew.
Noah’s mother is an alcoholic with whom he has “called a tentative truce,” and their relationship, both past and present, is also explored. Noah is more conflicted than anyone should ever have to be as he tries to discover the truth about his parents, his father’s past, and how much he may be like his father.
Unexpected twists take the reader down roads that could not have been predicted, leading to violence and an unanticipated finale. Jeff Shelby’s tight prose keeps us turning pages until the very end, and then leaves us questioning our own values.
Liquid Smoke will be released August 1, 2011.
Follow Technorati