Velvet on a Tuesday Afternoon: An Eddie Collins Mystery

At the start of Rosengren’s assured third Eddie Collins mystery (after 2015’s Red Desert), the part-time movie actor and full-time PI gets a visit from Carla Rizzoli, an actress he once briefly dated, at his L.A. office. Carla, now an exotic dancer known as Velvet La Rose, hires Eddie to locate her missing brother, Frankie, an army vet. Carla recently received a letter from Frankie, her first contact in almost eight years, on letterhead from the Los Angeles Mission downtown. He tells his sister he’s in trouble and that she should watch her back. Eddie soon learns that Phil Scarborough, one of Frankie’s old army buddies, is also looking for him. The more Eddie looks, the more odd connections he finds linking Frankie, Phil, and another army vet to Festival of Death, a movie Carla, who’s still acting on the side, is working on. He goes undercover among the homeless, and even uses his acting experience to work as an extra on Carla’s movie project, in his search for answers. In the end, Eddie proves to be a pretty resourceful and impressive detective. (Nov.)