WICKED BREAK

Private eye Noah Braddock (Killer Swell, 2005) takes time out from riding the waves to save his client’s brother from skinheads.

Noah isn’t exactly looking for work when lawyer Mike Berkley gives his name to Peter Pluto. But he figures he owes Mike for giving him enough work to pay the mortgage on his Mission Beach cottage when he was starting out, so he drives to San Diego State University to try to find out why 19-year-old political-science major Linc Pluto disappeared just before midterms—and why he had an arsenal of automatic weapons in his dresser drawer. The two stoner chicks next door are clueless, but one of them is shot before her interview with Noah is over, bringing SDPD detectives John Wellton and Liz Santangelo, who once had a thing with Noah, on to the scene. Wellton takes some lip from Noah and his surfing bud, Carter Hamm, but lets them look into the case anyway. Pretty soon, Peter Pluto’s dead, Noah gets beaten up by two white supremacists named Lonnie and Mo, a gangbanger named Deacon Moreno wants to know all about those guns and Liz seems to be dating Mike Berkley. All of which gives Noah barely enough time to bail his mom, Carolina, out of the drunk tank.

The bodies pile up pretty fast, but Noah emerges unscathed except for the psychological damage only a mother can inflict.