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The Scent of Blood by Raymond Miller |
| (Toby Press, $19.95, V) ISBN 1-59264-184-9 |
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| Nathaniel Singer is a would-be literature major whose “temporary” job with a detective agency doing research evolved into a permanent P.I. position. He’s just scraping by, rather like Philip Marlowe with a literary bent, when a dame walks into his office. Whether he knew she would be trouble when she enters is not known but she is beautiful. Her recently deceased husband was a brilliant pediatric cardiologist who was struck by a vehicle as he crossed the street in front of the hospital. The Party of God, an extremist organization, had been sending him threatening letters and the lovely widow needs Singer’s help to find the guilty party.
More comfortable with lacunae than lugers or tropes than truncheons, Singer survives beatings, abductions and home invasions using his wits rather than weapons as he tries to unravel the Gordian knot that makes up this case. In a moment when death seems imminent, his memory of an obscure piece of trivia saves his life. Russian thugs and damsels in distress make up this film-noir like case in which justice and suffering, guilt and regret are entwined in a plot worthy of Raymond Chandler or Ruth Rendell. Trust no one but be prepared to find help in the most unthinkable situations is one of the paradoxes of this detective series. How refreshing that an American investigator can quote great literature with the best of the British sleuths in Raymond Miller’s premier series. I look forward to reading more about the gumshoe who knows rhyming couplets.
--Jane Davis |
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