To the End of Reckoning

Criminal psychologist and YA author Moldover (Just Until) makes an auspicious adult debut with this humane mystery about a stage actor investigating a murder alongside his ailing father. Lukas Moore, 23, has given up the lead in a Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire to care for his psychiatrist father, Richard, who’s recovering from a traumatic brain injury after a car accident. Lukas’s return to his hometown of Faith, N.Y., coincides with a memorial service for Dr. Jason Grant, one of Richard’s young colleagues. Grant was last seen a year ago; some of his possessions were found on the shore of a lake upstate, and though his body never turned up, most locals believe he died by suicide. Richard, though, suspects foul play, based in part on a half-remembered conversation he had with Jason about a strange research proposal shortly before he disappeared. With his memory failing but his talent for close observation as sharp as ever, Richard enlists Lukas to help investigate Jason’s death in a case that winds up cutting uncomfortably close to home. Moldover draws even minor supporting characters in three dimensions, making the elegant core mystery much more satisfying than the average whodunit. Fans of character-driven crime fiction will eagerly await Moldover’s next move. Agent: Reiko Davis, DeFiore & Co. (Apr.)