SECRET LIVES

Multiple shady characters spring into action when a Secret Service agent is murdered.

Jonathan Finch is shot dead just outside the Crystal City apartments in Arlington, Virginia, while in the middle of an apparently felonious exchange involving cash and a satchel. Tenant Jesse Cooper, a student at nearby American University, cradles the dying Jonathan and hears his final words: “Tell Ethel the secret.” When she learns of the shooting, Crystal City landlady Ethel Fiona Crestwater immediately calls Cory Bradshaw, the head of the Secret Service, with the news that he’s lost an agent. One of the chief delights of de Castrique’s loopy crime yarn is that Ethel isn’t the frail, distracted septuagenarian she pretends to be but a whip-smart operator preeminent among the title characters. Det. Frank Mancini of the Arlington Police Department, who knows Ethel well, decides to investigate further with her and Bradshaw while trying to keep Jesse in the dark. Ethel does, however, give Jesse a gun for protection. Trevor Norwood, the man who killed Finch, is meanwhile plotting his own revenge. When FBI Director Rudy Hauser learns the identity of the dead man, he remembers him as “the key to twenty million dollars.” Bradshaw’s visit to Finch’s widow, Susan, muddies the water even further when she speculates that her husband may have committed suicide. An attack on Jesse brings FBI special agent Lisa Draper, yet another secretive soul, into the mix to begin her own investigation. De Castrique’s uber-twisty narrative strains credibility but consistently entertains.

A taut and crisply told thriller whose charmingly shady protagonist triumphs over a labyrinthine plot.