cover image Border Angels

Border Angels

Anthony Quinn. Open Road/MysteriousPress.com, $14.99 trade paper (250p) ISBN 978-1-4804-3605-3

The degradation of human trafficking is at the heart of Quinn's somber second novel featuring Northern Ireland's Insp. Celcius Daly (after 2012's Disappeared). Daly is called in after a badly burnt corpse is found in a car, the victim believed to be a Croatian pimp running a local brothel. The reader already knows that the death of the man, Sergei Kriich, was an accident, but the inspector soon has a genuine mystery to unravel. Jack Fowler, an affluent property developer with a weapon-dealing past, has been found floating in his swimming pool, with preliminary indications that he suffered a blow to the head before entering the water. Fowler's business dealings attracted the attention of the Fraud Squad, and he's also suspected of having swindled millions from the Northern Ireland peace fund by a shadowy figure who survived a hunger strike during the Troubles. The mystery of Fowler's death is compelling, but Quinn's most intriguing investigation concerns his examination of the toll taken on women forced into prostitution. Agent: Paul Feldstein, Feldstein Agency. (Oct.)