THE BIG BOOM

Private eye Dante Mancuso, pounding the mean streets of San Francisco, investigates whodunit to a former girlfriend.

There was a time when all North Beach thought Angie Antonelli and Dante Mancuso were a match. Eventually, however, they flared out. Now Angie’s on a slab in the county morgue, and Dante, looking down at her, feels she’s saying, “Don’t abandon me.” No chance. As an SFPD cop, Dante Mancuso was a famous obsessive, the kind who never forgot an unsolved case. Now Nick Antonelli, Angie’s angry dad, has hired Cicero Investigations, Dante’s current employer, to pressure the police into labeling her death a homicide and nailing the perp. Chief among the people of interest is Angie’s ex-boss and lover Michael Solano, who heads Solano Enterprises, a glitzy venture-capital operation that spews snake oil when Dante digs into it. Maybe Angie was a potential whistleblower, he thinks. If she was, did she need to be silenced? Was Nick Antonelli dead right to push the cops? Suddenly, just when it seems the answer must be yes, the investigation’s called off—by Nick. How come?

Lean, literate, atmospheric stuff, ideal for the noir-is-beautiful set. But Stansberry (Chasing the Dragon, 2004, etc.), whose touch gets surer every time, now rates a wider audience as well.