DENIED

A novice private investigator looks into the disappearance of her friend’s father in this second installment of a mystery series.

Derailed (2020) introduced 32-year-old Kelly Pruett, whose father died and left her his Portland, Oregon, private detective agency, R&K Investigations. She’d never handled anything like a murder case before but successfully untangled a mystery while uncovering family secrets and facing danger that left her with a bullet wound. Now it’s May, some months afterward, and Kelly is weighing whether to continue as a private eye or find a safer job when Stephanie Jacoby, an old high school friend, shows up, asking for help finding her missing father, Vince. He’s been out of touch since Thanksgiving. Though Kelly fails to find Vince at his deserted house, she does discover a severed finger—not his, it turns out—in the kitchen trash. Tracking down leads related to Vince’s gambling habit uncovers links among a bowling alley, a racetrack, a trucking company where he worked, the enterprise’s bookkeeper (also his money-lending landlady), and a projected water park of political and economic importance. As Kelly also juggles family matters and a new romance, her sleuthing again puts her in peril. As she did in her first Pruett novel, Keliikoa deftly marshals the story’s twisty interconnections, doing a fine job of keeping readers oriented as things march toward an ending with several surprises in store. Kelly is an appealing character, smart and hardworking as she feels her way through, and her PI work is nicely balanced by complications in her personal life. These include the difficulties of dating a new man under the eyes of her neighboring ex-mother-in-law and a reappraisal of her father, who left her feeling betrayed in Book 1.

A solid sequel with a relatable detective and an enjoyably knotty plot.