Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Whiskey Island by Les Roberts

Whiskey Island by Les Roberts (Gray & Co., 2012) is the 16^th title in the Milan Jacovich private investigator series. The FBI has been busy in Cleveland, Ohio, where they have indicted any number of shady local politicians, some of which have gone to trial and been convicted. One of the kingpins awaiting trial is council member Bert Loftus, a high-living, double-dealing creep that Milan would rather not work for but money is money and he needs the business. Milan doesn’t take Bert’s claims that someone is trying to kill him very seriously but Bert paid him to look into the situation and Milan sees this as a low-risk way to train his new employee Kevin O’Bannion (KO). 

Milan and KO develop a list of the people that might be happier to see Bert gone – it’s a long one -- and begin interviewing them. They generally find that these folks are cut from the same piece of cloth as Bert and deserve the law enforcement scrutiny they are receiving. What isn’t clear is exactly what Bert and his cronies were up to. It’s obvious that local businesses wined and dined Bert to obtain city contracts but overtones of more sinister activities are apparent. When a middle-aged call girl is murdered and her collection of customer video tapes is discovered, the local police want all the information that Milan has collected, as his client was known to have visited her shortly before her death. Inevitably he learns the local political corruption and the murder are deeply entangled.

This is a robust contemporary mystery. I have read about a half dozen of the titles in this series and find them to be reliable entertainment. Well-written, interesting characters, nicely developed and credible plots. The local color is particularly engaging. Les Roberts loves his adopted hometown of Cleveland and his affection shows on every page. In addition to a mystery, the reader is immersed in the sociology, history, and geography of northeastern Ohio. Loren Estleman’s books about Detroit achieve the same end.

Whiskey Island is the first book in which Milan has taken on an employee. Heretofore he has largely worked alone. The chapters are written first from Milan’s perspective and then from KO’s, reminiscent of Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective series when he decided to bring in a partner. When I heard John Lescroart talk at a conference a few years ago, he said his editor wanted someone younger to feature in some of the stories, so he created Wyatt Hunt, a private investigator that lawyer Dismas Hardy, the main character of Lescroart’s series, employed to work some of his cases. I am wondering if all of the editors with authors of long-running series have asked them to bring in younger characters, as this seems to be quite a trend. Not necessarily a bad trend, but definitely a trend.

Booklist starred review.

·                     Hardcover: 259 pages

·                     Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers; 1 edition (August 14, 2012)

·                     Language: English

·                     ISBN-10: 1938441095

·                     ISBN-13: 978-1938441097

Aubrey Hamilton © 2017
 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.