YESTERDAY IS NOT YET GONE

In Veiga’s debut mystery novel, a soon-to-be-retired New York City cop investigates when a Hollywood and Broadway star literally loses his head.

When Detective Judy Hunter’s co-workers throw her a surprise retirement party, she’s thrilled. It’s a great capper to a long day of investigating a decapitation; the victim was famed actor Ethan Gregory, who was found in the presidential suite of a high-end Manhattan hotel. At the party, Judy’s colleague Fred Gibbins’ 22-year-old daughter, Charlotte, announces that she’s decided not to become a doctor; she wants to be a cop like her dad. Fred was proud of his daughter’s acceptance to Harvard Medical School, so he’s crushed and leaves the party. Two days later, Charlotte finds him dead, hanging from a rope. Most believe that Fred, whose wife left him about 18 months ago, committed suicide. However, Charlotte finds a note, apparently from her dad’s murderer. The message is similar to one found days earlier in decapitated Ethan’s mouth. What connects the actor with Fred? Charlotte and Judy decide to visit Fred’s hometown, where they discover that he and Ethan were once on the same high school football team. After another murder, the women believe that someone wants payback for something—but what? Veiga gives his story a quick pace, which makes the pages turn just as rapidly, and his teaming of the feisty Charlotte with the experienced but adventurous Judy feels fresh. An overabundance of minor characters appear over the course of the story, but readers are sure to enjoy one of them in particular: Rush, Judy’s sweet spaniel. They may have a few quibbles with the prose, however, which includes excessive references to Charlotte as “the redhead” and odd descriptions, such as Charlotte’s beau’s wearing a “dressing gown” after waking from “the land of dreamers.”

An unlikely but appealing team drives this often thrilling whodunit.