Synopsis/blurb...
George “Mase” Masaryk knows about secrets. He has a few of his own, including the reason he left the police department. The son of Czechoslovak hippies, his life has been a strange journey from rebel to cop to private investigator.
It is a path his parents would never have chosen for him.
One full of secrets and regrets.
He is mulling over those secrets when businessman Andrew McDonough sits down next to him at the bar and the pair start drinking heavily. McDonough eventually asks Mase to help him with some “women problems.” It is a request Mase doesn’t even remember the next day, only recalling the foggy memory when Faye McDonough, Andrew’s wife, shows up at his office to hire him almost a week later.
Faye wants him to find McDonough, who is now missing. She doesn’t know if he’s run off with a lover, been kidnapped, or is dead somewhere, but expects Mase to find out. As he delves into the twisting secrets that surround Andrew McDonough, Mase encounters more questions than answers. All the questions are dangerous ones and if he’s going to survive to learn the truth, he needs to figure out that one fact that will make all of the pieces fall into place…
The third and latest (published today actually) in Zafiro's Spo-Compton series and a slightly different bent this time with an ex-cop PI taking the lead.
George Masaryk has a new case. Find the man he got drunk with a week ago in a bar. Andrew McDonough's wife is worried and with George's business card in her missing hubbie's things with a pencilled meeting date, George is the best place to start.
Wife, work, lovers, a business partnership, an investigation, shady dealings, disgruntled ex-employees, cash flow problems, an annoying and persistent cop dogging him, large bank withdrawals, blackmail, marital disharmony, and an encounter with a feared ex-cop-turned-crim. Life might have been easier for George Masaryk if he hadn't gone drinking that night.
I like how this one unfolded from a seemingly straightforward missing persons case to a more dangerous tangled web of deceit and manipulation. Characters from the two previous entries in the series reappear (Jake Stankovic and Kyle Falkner) and are an unwelcome complication in Masaryk's life.
Enjoyable storyline, interesting plot and characters, an easy writing style which keeps you turning the pages to uncover a bit more of what's going down quickly. Most of the characters involved in the drama are seemingly respectable individuals, but not above a bit of dodgy dealing to either survive or in the case of the more ruthless to get richer.
I look forward to getting reacquainted with the main players in the next (as yet unwritten) entries in Zafiro's Spo-Compton series. 
4 from 5
At Their Own Game and In The Cut are the first two bangers in this cracker of a series.
Read - March, 2022
Published - 2022
Page count - 186
Source - review copy from author
Format - ePUB read on laptop
This one sounds like an interesting case, Col. And I do enjoy stories where things go deeper than they seem on the surface - those twists and turns can be interesting. That's an effective premise, too - find the guy you got drunk with a week ago. I can see why you liked this one.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how an innocent almost forgettable encounter can be the spark for a book and an intriguing story.
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