HIGH CRIMES

A Chicago cop becomes a Rocky Mountain private eye in this debut crime novel.

After taking a bullet in the line of duty, former Chicago narcotics detective Brandy Martini has plans of starting over as a private investigator in the Colorado mountain town of Boomville. Unfortunately for Brandy, her confrontational personality lands her in jail only a few weeks after moving to town. (While visiting the town laundromat, she accidentally gave an undercover cop the impression that she was an out-of-town drug dealer.) Luckily, she uses her time in the slammer to drum up some business. It turns out the other woman in the cell—for being drunk and disorderly—is looking for her adult son, Lucas Davenport, who’s already been missing for three days. Once out of jail, Brandy rents a slightly dilapidated Victorian dwelling to serve as her combination home and office, then starts pounding the pavement for leads on the absent Lucas, who turns out to be a highly sought-after grower in the local weed economy. Brandy soon finds herself deep in the colorful—and dangerous—world of drug dealers operating on both sides of the law, all while negotiating frequent run-ins with the handsome police lieutenant who arrested her back at the laundromat. Sleepy Boomville turns out to have more than enough crime to keep a good private detective employed—assuming that the gumshoe doesn’t get herself killed, of course. In this series opener, Kane’s players are all characters with a capital C, and the plot evolves organically from their outsized personalities. The author’s descriptive prose sets the perfect mood for this mountain caper. Here, she describes Brandy’s early impressions of Boomville: “Half the town looked like it had been designed by hippies on acid. The other half was a collection of dilapidated wooden shacks, ghostly remnants of the former glory days of this once-booming mining town. The third half consisted of handsome brick buildings protected under national heritage laws.” The book offers an attractive blend of comedy and mystery, and by the end, readers will be eagerly anticipating the next Brandy Martini adventure.

A colorful, character-driven detective tale that captures the crunchy grit of modern Colorado.