A HOLE IN THE HEAD

A crime thriller series installment about a former FBI agent investigating the death of his brother.

Eidswick follows up his previous work, When Moths Burn (2019), with another novel featuring James Strait, a former G-man who still knows how to handle himself should violence arise. After his estranged brother is murdered in Tucson, James has plenty of reason to fight. Ricky Strait worked as a lawyer for an organization that provided legal aid to undocumented immigrants. Although James is initially called to Tucson just to identify Ricky’s body, he quickly becomes embroiled in the investigation into his sibling’s death. Ricky had been meeting with a drug runner named Ferris Davis prior to his death, and authorities believe that the latter murdered 13 people at a local ranch. Ferris, a meek man with a speech disorder, is generally well liked, and those who know him believe he’s relatively harmless. Still, the police and FBI offer James $50,000 to bring Ferris in; he could certainly use the money as well as the satisfaction of bringing his brother’s killer to justice. But what if Ferris is innocent? Eidswick crafts James as a rough-and-tumble protagonist with a sense of humor. For example, when a young tough tells James that he broke a window to “fight back,” James replies “Fight back? You broke a window. Are you fighting back against glass?” This gives him a likable quality not always seen in a hero who can, say, take down two cartel bodyguards while barely breaking a sweat. Not all the dialogue is quite as sharp, but the story takes some unexpected twists, and there’s a whole lot more going on in Tucson than readers will likely expect. However, they’ll know that James, whether he’s cracking wise or cracking skulls, will get to the bottom of it.  

A multilayered investigative tale with plenty of action and comic relief.