DESERT GETAWAY

An aging concierge and a desperate private eye team up in Craft’s mystery series starter.

Fifty-something Dante O’Donnell moved to Palm Springs seven years ago, giving up a not-so-successful acting career to marry his doctor boyfriend, Anthony Gascogne. Two years ago, Anthony asked for a divorce, and a few months afterward, he was murdered in an apparent break-in. Now Dante is working for a vacation rental company, looking after properties and some of the VIP clients. While assisting a wealthy art dealer, Dante runs into Jazz Friendly, the officer who investigated Anthony’s murder. Jazz has since lost her job and is now working as a rent-a-cop, providing security for the art dealer’s merchandise while moonlighting as a private detective. Dante and Jazz hate each other—Jazz wrongly arrested Dante for his husband’s killing, which indirectly caused her to lose her job—but when Jazz saves Dante from being framed for a different crime, the two call a truce. In fact, she asks if he might be able to drum up some PI business for her among the wealthy vacationing set. Dante agrees, but when a body turns up in the swimming pool of one of his rentals, he and Jazz are thrown into a caper that’s larger than either could have expected. Craft’s prose style is dry and sharp, perfect for the desert resort milieu of the aging rich and those who make their living from them. For example, here, Dante visits Jazz’s office in the back of a coffee shop for the first time: “Taped to the inside of the glass was a makeshift sign that I recognized as a photocopy of Jazz’s business card, which had been enlarged several times….I assumed Jazz didn’t get many walk-ins.” Dante and Jazz make for an intriguing pair, as both are flawed in their own embarrassing ways, and both are searching for something to fill the voids in their lives. Craft has long been an inventive mystery writer, and this new series promises to add a bit of grit to his distinctively colorful brand of storytelling.

An immersive first outing for a crime-solving odd couple.