GIVE THE DEVIL HIS DUE

A fortuneteller gets the surprise of her life.

Alanis McLachlan (Fool Me Once, 2015, etc.) has walked a long path from pawn in her late mother’s con game to owner of the White Magic Five and Dime. Now a legit tarot reader, she can decipher a standard Celtic Cross layout quicker than you can say “King of Cups.” So why did the cards not give her a heads-up that James McDonald, aka Biddle, didn’t die in a cornfield all those years ago but instead was about to descend like a thunderbolt onto picturesque Berdache, Arizona, bringing a cavalcade of small-time grifters on his trail? The 70-something African-American’s abrupt arrival unleashes quite a bit of family angst for Alanis’ mixed-race teenage sister, Clarice. It also brings Trump-style tycoon Ulf Pichler, unkempt Glenn Budziak, and detective Robert Dryja, all looking for something they want that Biddle probably has. When Dryja’s body turns up in his room at cushy Devil’s Ridge Lodge with a card from White Magic in his pocket, Detective Daniel Burby briefly makes it onto the list of Alanis’ problems, but he’s soon eclipsed by a couple of geriatric old-school mobsters. And the geezers are pushed to the back burner when someone aims an Uzi at Alanis and takes down a passing pigeon.

It’s every man, woman, and teen for himself as the authors uncork their third free-wheeling adventure set in the craziest town west of Maggody, Arkansas.