Holiday Book Recommendations
For the reader who loves a good Private Investigator
Some of my favorite novels are private investigator novels, particularly those that feature an engaging, if flawed, main character. And while a Harry Bosch story is always a good bet, there are so many great PIs out there now to choose from.
Ang Pompano’s Al Delucia, in BLOOD TIES AND DEADLY LIES has complicated relationships: with his formerly estranged father who is now suffering from dementia, with his long-distance girlfriend/business partner, with his childhood bully who now claims to be his brother, and most especially with his ex-girlfriend whose upcoming wedding is complicating his new case. This is the second in the Blue Palmetto Detective Agency series.
Johanna Schaffhausen’s Annalisa Vega has left the Chicago PD to open her own private detective agency. In GONE IN THE NIGHT, Anna is heavily pregnant and plagued with guilt over a decision she made that forever changed her family. Anna is smart and more than a little headstrong. GONE IN THE NIGHT is part of a series. You can certainly read it as a stand-alone but that decision she made is part of the series narrative.
DEATH OF AN EX is the second in Delia Pitt’s Vandy Myrick series. Vandy has returned to Queenstown, NJ her childhood home to open a detective agency. When her ex-husband, for whom she grudgingly still has feelings, ends up murdered, after having spent the night with her, Vandy must find the true killer. Pitt’s offers us a truly human detective, tough as nails on the outside, but utterly vulnerable on the inside. Pitt’s plots are taut and her humor is wry—two of my favorite things.
Kimberly G. Giarratano’s Billie Levine series saw its third installment this summer with MAKE A KILLING. This is one of my absolute favorite protagonists! Billie, forever feeling like she’s about to drown in her personal obligations and keeping herself afloat with her wise cracking humor, goes undercover at a luxury fashion retailer, only to run into her biggest professional rival, who is also undercover. This is a great gift as a set, if you include DEATH OF A DANCING QUEEN, DEVIL IN PROFILE, and MAKE A KILLING.