Icepick: A Foggy Moscowitz Mystery

Set in 1976, Edgar-winner DePoy’s amusing third Foggy Moscowitz mystery (after 2017’s Three Shot Burst) finds the Brooklyn-born former car thief and current director of Child Protective Services in Fry’s Bay, Fla., answering an early morning police call to come to the docks, where a dead man has been hauled out of the water. Foggy’s job is to interview two Seminole children—Duck, a boy of around eight, and Sharp, his slightly older sister—who spotted the body floating in the bay. Foggy befriends the kids, who are looking for their missing mother. At one point, Sharp tells Foggy: “We’re the only ones in the Panther clan with our unique... abilities. Duck can track. And I can kill.” Foggy begins a search for the mother, uncovering fraud, kidnapping, corruption, and madness along the way. Foggy’s friend John Horse, the leader of the local Seminole community, comments: “You realize that sometimes your diction is ridiculous”—to which Foggy replies: “It’s colorful.” This exchange pretty much sums up this socially conscious novel’s style: colorful fun, with a splash of irreverent wit. Agent: Janet Reid, New Leaf Literary Agency. (Sept.)