Bagmen: A Victor Carl Novel

Shamus Award–finalist Lashner brilliantly mixes anger and humor in his eighth novel featuring sad-sack lawyer Victor Carl (after 2007’s A Killer’s Kiss). When Victor attaches himself to the underbelly of the reelection campaign of Pennsylvania Congressman DeMathis, he recognizes that he’s just an errand boy carrying illegal payoffs from one place to another. He’d be happier if he could stop noticing how ugly corruption is so that he could relax and wallow in it. The brutal murder of a young woman to whom he just gave a blackmail payoff, however, makes Victor see that he’s being set up as the fall guy and that he can’t trust the people around him—his Machiavellian friend from law school, DeMathis’s enigmatic, weirdly sexy sister, and the crew of veteran bagmen who give him lessons in unscrupulous behavior. The plot itself is admirably taut, but readers will delight most in watching Victor’s savagely hilarious struggle against his better nature. [em]Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Associates. (Aug.) [/em]