SONG AND DANCE

Tracking down a wayward husband seriously complicates a lowly private eye’s life in Glennon’s novel.

Frank Rotten has been a PI for close to a year and has little to show for it. So, he happily accepts a case from Elizabeth Taft Gardner, clearly a woman of means (“my bank account was running on empty, and I needed the work”). Her schoolteacher husband, Billy, is missing; he left Pittsburgh on a “casino excursion” to Atlantic City but hasn’t yet returned home. It seems like a simple job, as Frank interviews people at Billy’s workplace and his favorite go-go bar. But the Gardners have a lot going on—both Elizabeth’s mother and her interior designer best friend separately approach the shamus with agendas and cash offers of their own. Frank ultimately makes his way down to Atlantic City, where he meets more than one individual who remembers Billy. Maybe that’s not such a good thing; a gun or two enter the picture, and closing this case becomes potentially dangerous. The detective headlining Glennon’s taut mystery is refreshingly down-to-earth. Frank became a private investigator after losing his job at an insurance company, and he doesn’t even have an office, just an apartment with a “meddlesome roommate.” He doesn’t ask for much—he’s merely hoping to establish himself as a PI, once he can afford some primo equipment, like a camcorder and a surveillance van. While Frank ogles quite a few women along the way, the novel’s female characters prove dynamic and engaging. (Frank gets help from Trudy Bonner, his friend and neighbor who still works at that insurance company, while another good friend, Casey Conlon, is a former cop who runs Frank’s preferred watering hole.) This mystery moves briskly, even when Frank’s leads seemingly go nowhere, and it’s thoroughly absorbing. A final act delivers answers as well as a bit of chaos.

A diverting detective story that’s equal parts entertaining and realistic.