It has been seven long years since Katy died as the latest novel in the very good Moe Prager series opens. Much has happened to Moe and his family and the aftershocks continue from Katy’s tragic death. Moe has divorced Carmella, their detective agency partnership has long since dissolved and these days he just deals with the wine business. The second store on Long Island will be opening up in a few months and Moe has his hands full with that. Moe Prager is very much out of the detective business these days and not just because nobody asks him to do anything anymore. The guilt over various cases and the pain that he brought home makes the toll way too high to consider poking around in anything even if he had any interest in anything.
He is also pretty much out of his daughter, Sarah’s life, and not by his choice. That is until Sarah begs him to once again dig into a case. Talented artist and child prodigy Sashi Bluntstone is missing and after three weeks the local police still have nothing despite their best efforts. The little 11 year old girl, who is at the center of a controversy in the art world regarding her work, vanished and there has not been a note, ransom demand, or anything. Sashi is also the daughter of Candy, Sarah's childhood friend. Sarah desperately wants Moe to look into it and is willing to let Moe back into her life for now, so Moe will go to heaven and hell to get back into Sarah's life.
But, as Moe has painfully learned before, heaven might be a figment of the imagination. Hell on Earth certainly exists and comes in many forms.
The sixth Moe Prager is another guilt filled trip deep into the world of noir and suspense. Twisted dreams and haunting perversions regarding several characters fill the novel and provide a world of moral decay in which Moe searches for a little girl lost. These characters are dominated by greed in various forms and don’t care who they use and abuse to get what they want. In this dark novel, greed is never good and takes its own toll on each character in visible and not so visible ways. In some aspects, Moe almost becomes one of them as the hours pass and the bodies begin to fall with no sign of the missing little girl. As the case weaves between suspects and the occasional clue, Moe pushes himself and others to the breaking point and beyond in a search generating some very ugly truth.
This sixth adventure is primarily a tale of Moe and where he is now in 2007. Guilt and pain remain a major part of his life and have come to dominate it in nearly every aspect. His life these days is more like a hermit than it ever was and that isolation from the world and family has made him even more reflective of his past. Those reflections provide a little context for those readers new to the series while also serving as gentle reminders for long time fans. Those that have stuck with the series over the five previous novels in the series are in for a real treat Moe is back and still not playing games in this complex tale written by award winning author Reed Farrel Coleman.
Innocent Monster
Reed Farrel Coleman
Tyrus Books
2010
ISBN# 978-1-935562-20-7
Hardback
291 Pages
$24.95
Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple© 2011
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