In Cervarich’s thriller, a private detective returns to his hometown to help care for his ailing father and gets swept up in a murder investigation.

Charlie Foxhawk Carter hasn’t been back to Richmond, Virginia, in decades, not since his father asked him to “cover up certain undercover operations that were ongoing and were shady, if not illegal” concerning a murder that Charlie was investigating. But when his mother calls to say she needs him, he doesn’t hesitate to return, and he finds his father a significantly diminished figure. While he’s in town, a series of so-called mercy killings occur—most of the victims are elderly women who have been poisoned. The police have arrested Three Carleton, and Charlie’s friend Chip has been engaged as his defense attorney. Three, after a severe car accident in his youth, was left “a seeming idiot with moments of brilliance”; he’s still living with his parents, and neither Chip nor Charlie believes he’s the real culprit. The narrative occasionally switches to the perspective of Sonny Pickett, a businessman who seems to be “the epitome of Southern rectitude and tradition” but is revealed early on to be the real murderer. While the shift provides an intriguing slant to the cat-and-mouse aspect of the story, Sonny is so calculating and narcissistic that he registers as a caricature of a villain rather than a realistic character. And while Charlie seems to be a competent detective, in this case, he operates by interfering directly with evidence in a way that would likely get him in legal trouble. A romantic subplot involving Charlie’s high school sweetheart provides some additional intrigue, and the novel is appealingly fast-paced. Numerous full-page collages featuring Richmond’s scenery appear throughout the book, which, after the initial few spreads, become repetitive and seem to mostly function as shortcuts that allow the author to avoid describing the setting in prose. A dramatic but protracted chase scene at the end reveals secrets not only about the murders, but also about Charlie’s father and his murky past.

A compelling mystery with an overreliance on cliched character types.

A documentarian/PI struggles to save a Hollywood Western film shoot from artistic interference and a malevolent conspiracy in this labyrinthine mystery.

This fifth installment of Cervarich’s Foxhawk Files series finds small-time filmmaker-cum-private eye Charlie “Foxhawk” Carter hired by Consider Pictures to do a “making of” documentary for their blockbuster 1982 Western, Freedom, in which a noble 19th-century Wyoming rancher battles a logger who wants to clear-cut his timber. On-set trouble includes a weak script, a feckless director, and leading ladies prone to interrupting takes with feminist protests, all of which Foxhawk films. He discovers that old flame Linda Preen hired him at the behest of Bull White, who works for a shadowy government agency called the Office and who may have murdered his father. Bull is hatching a convoluted scheme to take over the Freedom production, make the logger the hero, and inject free-market dogma into the script. (“For capitalism, our way of life, to succeed requires someone willing to do whatever it takes.”) After these machinations lead to a death, Foxhawk and Linda deploy various filmmaking skills to unmask Bull while Foxhawk conceives a brilliant new approach to Freedom. Cervarich’s rambling narrative sometimes bogs down in dream sequences, Buddhistic incantations, and a villainous plot that makes little sense, but he limns a richly detailed, evocative panorama of Hollywood—he captures the crassness and egotism, but also the meticulous devotion to movie-magic craft in corners as obscure as sound editing. The text interleaves the dime-store novella that Freedom is based on, and the faux oater is rendered in taut, punchy prose: “The kid had a fast draw all right but his aim left something to be desired. He clean missed me. Then he lowered his left hand to fan the gun hammer…my shot pierced the tobacco pouch he had in his shirt pocket which was directly over his heart. He was dead when he hit the floor.” Writing like that is worth the price of admission.

An erratic but absorbing portrait of Tinseltown and an entertaining Old West fable.

A young man seeking to reinvent himself gets caught up in a secretive plot in this complex thriller.

After a short, dissatisfying stay at the intelligence agency nicknamed “The Office,” Charlie Foxhawk Carter wants a fresh start. He leaves behind Richmond, Virginia, his family and friends, and all of his old expectations. Like many other young people, he moves to San Francisco during the Summer of Love. In San Francisco, he takes a position as a claims investigator for Life Beneficial. For his first case, Charlie investigates the death of murder victim Bob White. He’s soon getting pressured by the company president, his immediate supervisor, and White’s own parents to sign off on the cause of death so the claim will be paid. When he resists, Tony Vitolinich, Charlie’s cousin, suddenly becomes the prime suspect in the murder. While working to clear Tony, Charlie, who left his longtime crush Isobel back in Richmond, meets Heather Chicago, the girl of his dreams, who has her share of secrets. He also learns that White’s father, Bull, who’s been causing much of the turmoil in Charlie’s life, is a high-ranking Office official. Eventually, Tony and his girlfriend, Jane, who’s also Heather’s sister, are abducted, and Charlie and Heather must race to locate and rescue them while avoiding The Office’s clutches themselves. There’s a lot to like about Cervarich’s latest work, including the winning protagonist Charlie, who, like many young adults at that time, was trying to find his own way. Unfortunately, his doing the right thing and following his moral compass serves to get him into more and more trouble as he angers important, shady people. Cervarich does a magnificent job of evoking San Francisco during a turbulent time, but with all the mysticism and drug use in the novel, it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what’s imagined; Office agents also seem to lurk everywhere, which feels unrealistic. Still, this intriguing first volume in Cervarich’s series bodes well for future installments.

A young drifter fights the good fight in this atmospheric, engaging character study.

The early 1970s psychedelic youth culture of San Francisco provides the setting for Cervarich’s coming-of-age crime drama.

Leah Travail leaves her failed marriage, her disapproving family, and her Memphis, Tennessee, home for a new life as an artist in the free-wheeling culture of Marin County, California, where drugs are plentiful, sex is separated from commitment, and creativity is valued over money. In this second volume of his Foxhawkseries, the author follows Leah to California, where she embraces the counterculture and is welcomed by a “family” of like-minded hippies who encourage her artistic work and introduce her to Tony Vitolinich, a young film-lighting specialist who becomes her lover and best friend. But all is not peace and love in Marin County; a random act of violence destroys Leah’s relationship with Tony. Things unravel even further when both Leah and Tony become suspects in a murder, an event that leads former federal agent turned private detective Charlie Foxhawk Carter to investigate on their behalf. The novel’s strength is its ability to conjure up a dynamic cultural and physical setting, convincingly evoking the natural beauty of Mill Valley, California, and the kaleidoscopic social atmosphere of the era. Color photographs from the period interspersed throughout the book enhance the reader’s ability to grasp the unique ambience (“No adjoining houses can be seen. Nestled in a grassy meadow on the rise of a hill behind the house is a wooden water-storage tank bound together with heavy metal hoops. Wildflowers are blooming in the meadow”). Yet these elements are also a weakness at times, since they distract from a narrative that, as a result, takes too long to unfold. The author is right to include descriptions of the casual drug culture, especially as they relate to the plot, but readers may tire of their repetitive quality. Overall, this is a solid follow-up to the series’ first installment, but a tighter story would make later additions more enticing.

A vivid evocation of the hippie culture of early 1970s San Francisco.