The Third Brother: An Andy Hayes Mystery

An anti-immigrant attack propels Welsh-Huggins’s timely fifth mystery featuring Columbus, Ohio, PI Andy Hayes (after 2017’s The Hunt). Andy has just finished shopping when he spots two white guys hassling a Somali woman in a grocery parking lot. One of the thugs is pulling on her head scarf; she’s fighting back with one hand and trying to shield her crying kids with the other. Andy intervenes and rescues the woman, a good deed that impresses the local Somali community, in particular the parents of 19-year-old Abdi Hirsi, a model student who disappeared three days after the family learned that his self-radicalized older brother, Hassan, had been killed fighting in Syria. Terrorist social media messages allegedly posted by Abdi shortly before he vanished have brought in the FBI. After reluctantly agreeing to try to find Abdi, Andy soon realizes that everyone he interviews is hiding something, including Abukar Abdulkadir, the community liaison helping the Hirsis. Welsh-Huggins educates and entertains as he explores immigrant issues through his empathetic hero’s investigation. [em](Apr.) [/em]