THE DEVIL'S OWN GAME

Think winning the lottery would make your dreams come true? Think again.

Since blind college professor Tom Bennington won $550 million in the MondoMegaJackpot, his life and that of his love, Allie Harper, have been, well, interesting. They’ve fought off killers and launched a detective agency with the ill-advised name of T&A (Murder to the Metal, 2018, etc.), made new friends, hired bodyguards, and become patrons of the arts. At a Touch Tour for the blind, they encounter Kip Wade, who’s both blind and nasty. When he’s shot dead by a sniper near the museum, an uncomfortable question arises: Did the killer think he was Tom? Olivia Wood, the Cleveland Homicide officer who catches the case, soon becomes a friend who’s willing to work with them and their bodyguard, retired cop Otis Johnson. Security footage leads them to a woman pretending to be blind, who’d handed Allie a note before the shooting, and to Tito Ricci, who’d failed to steal Tom’s millions and is now out for revenge. Both these suspects will die; when Tito is found brutally murdered, the police assume the sniper has struck again. The killer announces that he wants money, but he’s in no hurry to collect, and the suspense drives Allie to bouts of hysteria. Her attempt at therapy is to take on a new case, and one arrives on cue. The unpleasantly clueless woman who formerly owned their lakeside mansion claims that her husband has faked his death and is planning to kill her to take over her trust fund. No sooner has T&A gone into action than the sniper makes a move, and a dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensues.

Overlapping plots, sometimes humorous, often confusing, undermine a promising mystery full of interesting characters.