cover image Devil's Slew: A Detective Barrett Raines Mystery

Devil's Slew: A Detective Barrett Raines Mystery

Darryl Wimberley, Minotaur, $25.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-64949-4

Vivid descriptive prose and a keen ear for local dialect distinguish Wimberley's explosive fifth mystery featuring African-American special agent Barrett "Bear" Raines (after 2007's Pepperfish Keys). Bear knows every inch and most of the diverse inhabitants of his seven-county northwestern Florida jurisdiction, including Quentin Hart, an Afghanistan War vet who takes his girlfriend hostage in his trailer in a swamp area known as Devil's Slew. When Quentin charges into the open with his automatic rifle, Bear and Sheriff Smoot Rawlings have no choice but to shoot to kill. Aided by the FBI and other Florida law officials, Bear finds ties between Quentin and a cadre of alienated veterans who, in addition to their counterfeiting and money laundering activities, may know who's responsible for decapitating a young mother working undercover for the Treasury Department. Soon the veterans themselves are being murdered, one by one. Though the story unfolds in a disconcertingly disjointed manner, it satisfies. (Mar.)