MINK EYES

A private investigator, scarred inside and out, works a case involving money, murder, and mink.

In Flanigan’s thriller series opener, set in the mid-1980s, detective and former Marine Peter O’Keefe takes an assignment from some investors in a mink farm to find out what’s happened to their money. The first few years that the farm operated, investors were paid fabulous returns, but now checks have stopped coming, and Lenny Parker, the man in charge, has disappeared. His secretary, Jane, who O’Keefe deduces was in love with her boss, said the normally sweet Lenny had recently become “like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” after taking on a new investor known as Mr. Canada. When O’Keefe surprises Lenny’s beautiful wife, Tag, at the mink farm, she is planning to vamoose in her Jaguar. What first appeared to be a Ponzi scheme turns into something deadly when thugs also show up, and mink are not the only things slaughtered. No regular guy, O’Keefe wrestles with war memories, battles alcoholism, and fills his van with grenades. And now he falls under the spell of the aqua-eyed wife of the man he is hunting. He also has issues with his ex-wife, and he frequently disappoints their preteen daughter, Kelly, with failed plans. He also lies mightily when he tells Kelly he doesn’t carry a gun (he totes both an M-16 and a .38 pistol). O’Keefe’s character is honestly written as a deeply flawed man with scars and distressing memories that stretch from childhood to action in the military; he’s a private eye who sees life as having a downward trajectory. Shocking violence and thrilling, edge-of-your-seat scenes fill many pages of this enjoyable novel. Descriptions are rich, but some readers will find Kelly’s lengthy sketch of her dad as a handsome man with hazel eyes that “changed from brown to green and sometimes almost to blue, depending on what he wore” a bit uncomfortable. A strong anti-fur message comes across organically.

An engaging thriller reveals that crime involving mink can be a whole different animal.