THE LEARNING CURVE OF PAIN

A London-based fixer investigates unrelated deaths that stir up numerous questions in Ruckus’ thriller, the second in the Mercenaries in Suits series.

Chance Yang  is a “part-time fixer” living in London. It’s been less than a year since his former job brought him to England and into a stalker case involving his now-girlfriend Catherine Roxborough. Chance’s latest gig comes courtesy of Catherine’s university professor uncle, Alexander Roxborough, whose friend, Lewis Milken, asks Chance to look into the death of his older sister, Emma. She allegedly died of tuberculosis while teaching in Barcelona, but the family has troublingly few details about her illness and passing. The fixer hops onto a plane and manages to shed some light on the case, but it’s not long before someone else needs his help back in London. Another friend of Catherine’s uncle’s, this one a detective named Nigel Weatherby, is stymied by a deceptively simple murder—a fatal stabbing, followed immediately by the assailant’s accidental death as he sped away. The crime scene teems with unexplainable details: Accessories for a digital audio recorder (power adapter, operating manual) are present, but the device itself is suspiciously missing. At the detective’s suggestion, Chance goes undercover as a private math tutor to get close to a wealthy family that may have answers. As his ex-boss, Felipe Kazama, puts it, Chance is “damn good at worming information out of people” (Felipe, the comic highlight of the previous book in the series, remains a reliable font of advice, even if he buries it in self-indulgent diatribes). Ever-patient Chance knows that if he continues working his case, he’ll eventually hit on a clue that leads to an illuminating revelation.

Like the series’ introduction, A Chinese Remedy (2021), this sophomore installment moves at a leisurely pace. The well-established characters are dynamic—emotions run high when Catherine, who once caught her fiancé cheating on her, is convinced by a rumor that Chance has been equally unfaithful. Chance’s jobs usually aren’t the narrative’s focus, which instead spotlights such story elements as his relationship with Catherine and Felipe’s monopolization of discussions with long-winded dialogue. The novel is split into two interlinked stories: The first (and shorter of the two) centers on the Barcelona case and concludes with a solid wrap-up. The considerably longer second story, which opens with the detective’s murder case, features much more of Felipe. He’s indisputably intelligent and occasionally witty, and characters often recall insightful snippets from his lectures that become de facto guidelines, such as the “art of distraction is always more important than lies.” But in other instances, Felipe takes over the plot, as when his “weekend leadership bootcamp” spins off into political rants that last for pages. Nevertheless, the story does find a resolution as the final act provides a shocking character turn and a memorable denouement.

The superb cast propels a worthwhile mystery offset by a few too many tangents.