Fatal Judgment: An Andy Hayes Mystery

At the start of Welsh-Huggins’s intriguing sixth Andy Hayes mystery (after 2018’s The Third Brother), Judge Laura Porter, for whom the Columbus, Ohio, PI once did security work after Porter was threatened by a convict’s relative, shows up at his house. Five years earlier, their professional relationship turned intimate, but Porter’s refusal to be seen with Hayes in public caused him to break up with her. Porter now needs his help, but before she can be specific about the trouble she’s in, she receives a call on her cell that prompts her to rush off. When Porter doesn’t call Hayes back and fails to show up for work, Hayes goes looking for her, without success. A slip of paper concealed in a law dictionary leads him to an undeveloped plot of land that was the subject of a lawsuit assigned to Porter, and an attack by a knife-wielding thug when he goes there convinces Hayes that he’s on the right track. Fans of Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone books will be pleased. (Apr.)