cover image The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel

Mark Pryor. Prometheus Books/Seventh Street, $15.95 trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-1-61614-994-9

In Pryor’s energetic fourth Hugo Marston novel (after The Blood Promise), Hollywood star Dayton Harper and his actress wife, Ginny Ferro, kill a farmer in a hit-and-run car accident while filming a movie in Hertfordshire. Days later, Ginny’s body is discovered hanging from a tree in a London graveyard. When Hugo, the head of security for the American embassy in London, tries to take Dayton into protective custody, he flees the city. Two of Dayton’s biggest fans, Graham Stopford-Pendrith, a member of the House of Lords, and Merlyn, a young female hotel worker, insist on joining Hugo in the search for the missing actor. Together, the unlikely trio gets on the trail of an unusual conspiracy. The central mystery is appealing enough to make up for some less than engaging subplots, such as Hugo’s bungled attempt to infiltrate a BDSM leather party. Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary Agency. (Sept.)