FAVORS AND LIES

When private detective Dan Lord’s nephew and sister-in-law die under mysterious circumstances, he must call on all his resources to bring evildoers to justice in Gilleo’s (Sweat, 2012, etc.) third novel.
Lord is a Washington, D.C., private detective who specializes in brokering extralegal solutions to the problems of the powerful. Readers meet him as he blackmails an abusive federal judge into signingdivorce papers and withdrawing threats against the judge’s wife. Once Gilleo establishes Lord’s character and modus operandi, he gets into the meat of the story: the apparent death-by-overdose of his college-age nephew, Conner, and the subsequent suicide of Lord’s widowed sister-in-law, Vicky. The detective believes that the deaths aren’t what they seem, and he sets out to investigate. Along the way, he calls on a new intern with a surprising array of information at her fingertips, a Russian intelligence contact, a paranoid tech whiz, a high-priced madam and two D.C. police officers who are decidedly on the fence about Lord’s involvement in the case. It turns out that the case involves corruption deep within the government intelligence community, and the forces arrayed against Lord are deep-pocketed, legally untouchable and personally unsavory. Gilleo has the thriller mystery formula down pat, providing the right mix of investigation and action, and the right balance of distrustful authority figures and trusted colleagues. The climax, which includes several twists, is where the novel falls apart somewhat; readers will easily guess one undercover agent’s identity. The prime mover behind the entire situation, however, is a real surprise, although the story doesn’t seem particularly concerned with who’s ultimately giving the orders. Finally, the key behind Conner’s suspicious death is tied to a piece of information that Lord knew all along, but was hidden from readers, which may leave them feeling cheated rather than entertained.
A thriller with plenty of action, gadgetry and intrigue, although the conclusion is a bit of a letdown.