Chasing Demons

As his past comes back, peeling away the layers of protection he’s constructed to restart his life, investigative reporter Luc Actar becomes ensnared in a web of consequences stemming from malpractice within the mental health system of Los Angeles.

Luc returns for his second starring role in Garcia’s (Falling Angels, 2006, etc.) latest page-turner. Born into poverty and raised by an abusive, alcoholic father, Luc learned early on how to fend for himself on the streets of LA. After several run-ins with the law and a career as a car thief, he blossomed into a star journalist for Crime Reporter, with a specialty in uncovering police corruption in Southern California. Now, he’s living with Mattie Hardwin, ex-wife of his best friend, in her Malibu home, he drives a Porsche of questionable provenance and has determinedly been putting his past behind him. But when the police come to tell him that his estranged father has died, Luc becomes inexorably drawn into the investigation of mental health records stolen by the elder Actar, and he soon finds himself in the center of a string of murders that threaten everyone and everything that’s important to him. Garcia is a skillful novelist, and she makes good use of Luc’s first-person narrative to plumb the depths of the fears and self-deprecation that lie beneath his combative, trouble-prone exterior. Readers get only glimpses into the character development of the large supporting cast—even Mattie, the pivotal motivator in Luc’s life, is a bit of a cipher—but this is Luc’s story, after all, and readers will find themselves hoping he can skirt the edges of what seems like an inevitable decline into an abyss of self-destruction. Some interesting plot twists liven up the story, and the appearance of Chris Actar, a young teenager who may or may not be Luc’s half brother, adds even more complexity to a man still trying to define himself.

An engaging sequel that will leave readers hoping Luc returns yet again.