Rogues: A Harry Sommers Adventure

It is no coincidence that the reader encounters Harry Sommers, a small-time British criminal starting over as a private detective, reading a volume of Graham Greene. Hired by the owner of an arcade at a beach resort near Brighton, Harry's job is to discover the originator of a series of practical jokes that threaten the man's business. During Harry's first day on the case, an undertaker arrives, having been sent to pick up the body of one Harry Sommers. Harry considers quitting then, and later when he comes up square against an old underworld boss, and again when one of the arcade workers is shot to death. But he perseveres, partly for the sake of his new girl friend, a teacher who lent him the Greene novel and is a part of his new life, and because he's discovering it's not in his nature to give up. Ending in a fine nighttime chase through the dark and wet of the amusement park's Tunnel of Love and high onto the tracks of the Big Dipper, Harry's investigation unravels both the killing and the attacks on the arcade. The crimes are unrelated, but the process of solving them is what matters, having firmed up something inside Harry. Low-key sleuthing and unheroic but memorable characters distinguish this new mystery by the author of Robbers and Post Mortem. (January 18)