THE MUTINY GIRL

An attorney links a present-day betrayal and murder in Florida to unsolved past crimes in Gordon’s debut legal thriller.

Miami lawyer Vance Courage still thinks about a decades-old cold case of a murdered waitress at the Hotel Mutiny from when he was a cop. The Mutiny catered to drug kingpins who demanded expensive champagne, girls, and more. His friend Daniel Ruiz, a retired police sergeant, hasn’t forgotten the crime either. In the present day, Vance is dating “tall, whippet-thin blonde” Lauren Gold, whom he met on a dating website. However, Lauren, a freelance video marketing producer, is catfishing Vance at the request of Ray Dinero, her friend and singular client, who has a connection to the drug gangs. Meanwhile, Vance’s uncle Tony Famosa slithers back into his nephew’s life after hiding in Cuba for 20 years. The FBI long has had Tony on its most-wanted list for smuggling billions of dollars’ worth of cocaine into Florida—and much of the money is still missing. It turns out that Tony may be connected to Ray, and he’s also linked to a Cuban sociopath, Ramon “Mongo” Solana, who was at the Mutiny on the fateful night that the waitress died—as was Lauren. Coincidences start piling up, and Vance and Daniel may finally get to the bottom of that unsolved crime. Readers may be intrigued by the fact that this story was inspired by events at the real-life Hotel Mutiny in Miami, where the author worked in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Rich descriptions fill the pages of this novel; for example, Daniel’s face features “fleshy folds between his eyes, deep enough to clamp a dime.” Some of Gordon’s word choices are particularly evocative, as when a killer with a deformed foot “crabbed out of the room.” The characters are distinctive, and protagonist Vance is shown to have considerable flaws. It should be noted, however, that there are violent scenes of murder and sexual predation that may be over-the-top for some readers.

An engagingly written series starter with a bounty of plot twists and Miami vices.