Thunder Road

In 1947, former soldier Jeff Sharp, the hero of Holmes’s intriguing debut, loses his job as a special ranger for the Fort Worth and Western Stockmen’s Association in Fort Worth, Tex. At a gambling house owned by mob-connected Doyle Denniker, Sharp runs into Jerry Cartwright, an Army major who saved his life during WWII. After Denniker offers Sharp a job investigating a real estate mogul, one thing leads to another, and he becomes a full-fledged PI. When Cartwright, who was in debt to Denniker, disappears, Denniker hires Sharp to locate Cartwright. Suddenly, Sharp finds “people were trying to kill him and nobody bothered to tell him why.” Sharp’s search takes him to Las Vegas, Nev., and Roswell, N.Mex., where mysterious lights appear in the sky. Along the way, he encounters such real-life notables as mob accountant Meyer Lansky, business magnate Howard Hughes, congressman Lyndon Johnson, and comedian Jack Benny. Clear, crisp prose makes the knotty plot easy to follow as it morphs from a western into a detective story with an overlay of conspiracy theories. The genre-shifting may put off some readers, though most will be curious to see what Holmes does next. (Feb.)