Gumshoe Rock

June 1, 2019
A fourth round of wisecracks, fisticuffs, come-ons, and the occasional homicide for Reno private eye Mort--only his mother called him Mortimer, and that was a mistake--Angel. Clary Investigations, owned and operated by tough cookie Maude "Ma" Clary, has two cases on its current docket. Karen Galbraith wants the agency to find her runaway daughter, Megan, and CPA Evelyn Joss wants to know what Michael Volker, her junior partner, did with the $13,600 he withdrew from the company's account. Ma and Lucy Landry, the ex-waitress who caught Mort's eye and more in his last outing (Gumshoe on the Loose, 2018, etc.), find Megan Galbraith in record time. But the other case is trickier even though Volker hasn't taken the trouble to run away; he just stammers and orders Mort out of his house when he's asked about the missing funds. Evelyn Joss isn't inclined to press too hard, but once Volker knows she's onto him, she knows it won't be long before the cops get involved and raise the stakes. That's a pity, because Mort has already been dumped into what looks at first like a nonpaying case when he finds the skull of Ronald Soranden, the vanished head of the Northern Nevada IRS, in Lucy's convertible. Fear not: Since Mort already has a nationwide reputation as a discoverer of high-profile corpses, it's not long before IRS Commissioner William V. Munson dangles a fat consultancy fee before him if he can identify Soranden's killer. Stopping by to pick up Lucy in Munson's martini-fueled government jet (a nice touch for all concerned), Mort goes on the hunt, looking not so much to finger the perp, who turns out to be pretty unsurprising, but to find out why Soranden was worth killing, a question that turns out to be well worth asking. Fans of Travis McGee hungry for red-meat private-eye adventure will tune out the mystery and focus on the hero's effortlessly self-confident sex appeal, superhuman physical strength, and nice way with dialogue.

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June 24, 2019
In Leininger’s sluggish fourth novel featuring former Nevada IRS agent turned PI Mortimer Angel (after 2018’s Gumshoe on the Loose), the skull of Mort’s missing former boss, Ronald Soranden, turns up in the vandalized Mustang of his assistant, Lucy Landry. The discovery leads to an FBI inquiry and increased scrutiny for Mort, amid a case involving an accountant who embezzled money in an attempt to pay back unpaid taxes, only to fall prey to the blackmail plot of an unscrupulous IRS agent. With Lucy’s help, Mort’s ensuing investigation to recover the missing money connects to other seemingly unrelated cases occupying their agency. Mort never misses the opportunity to ramble about generational differences as well as the government-sanctioned criminals working in the IRS. The relationship between Mort and Lucy functions as wish fulfillment, robbing her of agency as well as necessity to the story. The convoluted buildup, meanwhile, supersedes the effort to construct a dramatically satisfying mystery. Those who prefer an antiquated take on the hard-boiled genre will best appreciate this one.

Starred review from August 1, 2019

Private-investigator-in-training Mort Angel has the dubious reputation as a locator of famous missing people--he's been known to find some of their body parts when they're dead. After meeting with Maude "Ma" Clary, head of Clary Investigations, he and his lover/assistant Lucy Landry find someone ripped the roof of Lucy's Mustang convertible. That someone also dropped a human skull into the driver's seat. Because it's the skull of Ronald Soranden, the missing chief IRS agent in northern Nevada, Clary Investigations' latest case involves the police, the FBI, and, of course, the IRS. Why would such a weird murder case link to the team's latest embezzlement investigation? It must be Mort's knack for involvement in cases involving body parts and missing people. The latest Gumshoe novel is darkly humorous and unconventional, with a PI aware of the absurdity of his career. VERDICT Gumshoe, the first in the series, was a Shamus nominee, and the author continues to develop Mort's character and his snappy repartee. Readers who loved Robert B. Parker's Spenser or Matt Goldman's Nils Shapiro will appreciate the humor and investigative work in this outstanding example of the PI novel.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
Some names for you: Donna Del Sarron, Lara Rose Donndin, and Ian Norse Danlord. Stare at them until the pattern emerges, and you're on your way to grasping a clue at the heart of this intriguing crime novel. This is the fourth effort in Leininger's Gumshoe series, and, like the others, it wishes to be a hard-boiled knockout while commenting on the form, even mocking it. The star is once again former IRS agent Mortimer Angel, still seeking to reinvent himself as a PI. He's pulled into an investigation when a skull appears on the seat of a convertible belonging to his lady love, the sexy, sarcastic Lucy. Meanwhile, Angel's employer?an agency owned by a salty woman referred to only as Ma?is retained on an embezzling case. The two cases merge, or try to, amid the author's postmodern digs. He imagines Spade and Marlowe mocking him, exults in zingy accolades for his one-liners, and manages, amid all the wordplay, to survive a kerosene-soaked finale that is, incidentally, a stunning bit of bravura writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)