Hanging the Devil: A Cape Weathers Mystery

Maleeny’s goofy fifth thriller featuring San Francisco PI Cape Weathers (after 2019’s Boxing the Octopus) sees Triad-trained assassin Sally Mei roping Cape into the protection of a young immigrant girl. Sally, who’s tasked herself with keeping San Francisco’s Chinatown safe, is trailing a date rapist when she runs into 11-year-old Grace. Grace, whose father, Wen, is facing arrest by Chinese authorities for protesting the government, has recently been smuggled out of the country and sent to live with her uncle Han, a security guard at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. While Grace was staying with Han at the museum overnight, a helicopter crashed into the building’s skylight, killing Han before its passengers emerged, murdered their pilot, and stole a valuable Buddha statue. Grace escaped, and Sally enlists Cape to help keep the girl safe while they determine who was behind the heist. Meanwhile, Wen’s imprisonment in China exposes him to a horrific experiment in which human genes are spliced into a monkey’s brain. Maleeny keeps the zaniness high and the puns flowing (one character “can’t resist a big macaque attack”), but the pace can drag, and his gimmick of starting new chapters with the final words of their predecessors grows tiresome. This is strictly for committed fans of the series. (Nov.)