
An impulse pick off the "New Fiction" shelves at Portsmouth Public Library. I liked the previous Andrew Klavan book I read—whoa—back in 2012, Empire of Lies. More recently, I grew disenchanted with his lliberal political commentary a few years back, and as often happens, I lost interest.
But never fear, this is pretty good. The protagonist is Cameron Winter, ex-spy, current English professor. His previous undercover career involved him in some unsavory acts, and caused him ongoing psychological difficulties. He unburdens himself to an understanding shrink, but as another symptom, he finds himself drawn to investigate a multiple-murder, accompanied by arson. Along the way, he finds himself beset by gangsters, an obviously dirty cop (but is there more than one dirty cop?), and people that don't want to tell him the truth. And his own inner demons.
Klavan's fiction style is ornate, maybe not to everyone's taste. The first-person narration means we spend a lot of time inside Cameron's troubled head.
Consumer note: This is Klavan's third novel featuring Cameron Winter, but it seemed relatively stand-alone to me, even the flashbacks to his spy career. I'll probably make a point of reading the previous entries in the series.