LIARS ALL

Brodie Farrell’s valedictory ninth case begins with robbery and violence and ends with an orgy of self-sacrifice.

Nine months after Robert Carson ran his car over Jane Moss and Tom Sanger so that he could steal their jewelry, Margaret Carson comes to Looking for Something? with an unusual request. Unable to beat her guilt over what her son did, she wants to find the sapphire necklace taken from Jane’s neck as she lay in the street. Margaret knows that nothing can make up for Jane’s crippling or her loss of her fiancé, but she wants to restore the necklace, a gift to Tom from his mother, to Jane. Brodie (Closer Still, 2008, etc.) can’t handle the commission because she’s focused on finding a cure for her infant son Jonathan’s brain tumor. So the job falls to her shy, shambling assistant, Daniel Hood. His first setback is a beating by an unknown assailant who gently urges him to drop the case. His second is a slap in the face by Jane, who struggles up from her wheelchair to reach her target. His third is getting sacked by Margaret when he admits that he probably won’t be able to find the necklace. But even as Brodie and Jonathan’s father, Det. Supt. Jack Deacon, hope for a miracle, Daniel’s quest produces miraculous results which in turn raise ethical quandaries for Jane, Brodie, Deacon and even Dimmock crime lord Terry Walsh, Deacon’s old friend and cherished antagonist.

Though Bannister’s characters, especially Daniel, feel obliged to explain themselves at Ibsenesque length, the results are truly magical.