BETRAYERS

Thirty seven titles into their series (Schemers, 2009, etc.), the Nameless Detective and his mates get to work on some cases that are beyond personal.

It’s probably just as well that there’s so little billable stuff wending its way into the Nameless detective agency, because the non-billable stuff, the up-close-and-personal stuff, is hugely distracting. Consider what matters most to Tamara Corbin, for instance. The young, bright, black, in-your-face woman Nameless recently appointed to a partnership is so focused on payback that everything else in her life is Lilliputian. She’s been dissed by a plausible scoundrel who weaseled his way into her bed and then made her feel stupid for allowing it to happen. Adding insult to injury, Antoine Delman had called her chubby. Convinced that hers is a scalp on a chock-full belt, Tamara mounts an investigation and soon enough discovers how right she is. Alisha and Antoine, a mother and son scam team, brazen, adept and immoderately profitable, have been eluding retribution for much too long. “The Delmans were going down,” Tamara promises herself grimly. Meanwhile, both Nameless and Jake Runyon, his ace field man, are encountering family problems that can’t be allowed to fester, the kind of knotty, often poignant problems that have made this low-key series irresistible.

Solid as ever, with funny, ballsy Tamara continuing to buff her role as designated scene-stealer.