CODEBREAKERS

The two new partners in the S and M Detective Agency untangle a trio of unrelated cases.

Awakening from a coma to find that he’s been shot four times and is no longer an active member of the Olemeda (Florida) Police Department, Silas Jackson joins forces with Maggie Moore, a linguistic genius whose consultation with the department played a key role in identifying the pedophile who shot him, to open a private agency. Their first client, a guy named Mitch whose last name might as well be Bashful, isn’t eager to talk about anything, but eventually they prod him into telling the story of how a pickup at a local drag ball took him back to his hotel room, had his way with him, and vanished, taking his clothes but leaving him with a fresh tattoo on his butt. Naturally, Mitch won’t show them the tattoo, but he does share a selfie, and the shape looks just as inexplicable as he described—with one unusual feature they soon discover: Mitch hasn’t been tattooed but branded, along with three other guys in his online chat room. For a time, Mitch’s case distracts Maggie from her search for her best friend, Lucy, who vanished after leaving behind a cryptic clue Maggie hopes will help locate her. And since she’s otherwise unengaged, her success in uncovering an unsuspected cousin through a commercial DNA match makes her decide to hunt for the biological father who raped her late mother and moved on. If this sounds like quite the breakfast buffet, it is, and the three cases are constantly competing for the time and attention of Maggie, Silas, and the bemused reader.

The down-home setting and rat-a-tat dialogue help compensate for three cases that add up to one hot mess.