All In

At the start of Gardner’s strong third crime novel featuring Portland, Ore., PI Lennox Cooper (after 2016’s Betting Blind), Lennox returns home from Starbucks one morning to find a woman of about 70 sitting in her living room. Fearing the intruder might have a gun in her oversized handbag, Lennox impulsively throws the cup of coffee she’s carrying at the woman and races up the hall. By the time Lennox returns with the pistol she keeps in her office, the housebreaker is mopping up the coffee stains on the rug. After apologizing for not waiting on the porch, the woman introduces herself as Idzi Jagoda, whose mentally disabled 31-year-old son, Tomek, has been charged with murdering his girlfriend, librarian Hadley Eberhart. Sure of Tomek’s innocence, Idzi, who hints that crime is the family business (how else did she get into Lennox’s locked house?), hires Lennox to help prove it. Lennox is soon running up against Jill Rykoff, “the super smart and totally gorgeous prosecutor” in the case, as well as Tomek’s defense attorney, August Kline, whose plea deal strategy she opposes. Readers will look forward to seeing more of the feisty and resourceful Lennox. (May)