USA Today best-selling author“Mortimer Angel is my favorite private eye.”—John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling authorEarly in July, northern Nevada’s senior Internal Revenue Service agent, Ronald Soranden—disliked by every agent in the Reno IRS office—vanished without a trace. In September, he makes a dramatic reappearance, of sorts. His skull—stripped clean and white—is dropped through … skull—stripped clean and white—is dropped through the slashed top of a Mustang convertible. The vehicle belongs to Lucy Landry, PI Mortimer Angel’s gorgeous young assistant now working with him on a seemingly unrelated embezzlement case.
But Mort is a former IRS field agent in Reno. He’d done his time during the tyrannical reign of Soranden, quitting, he says, “when I discovered I have a soul.” Now that his former boss’s head has appeared, he and Lucy find them themselves under the annoying surveillance of a pair of IRS enforcement agents.
When the FBI are brought in to investigate the murder, Mort and Lucy realize shocking details about their own case—primarily Soranden’s involvement. It becomes evident that events and suspects of the embezzlement case and Soranden’s murder are heavily entangled with those enmeshed in an ugly case of blackmail. Mort and Lucy are roped tighter and tighter into the Soranden investigation while they grapple with the deadliest situation of their PI careers. Mortimer Angel has been in harrowing, lethal situations before and has suffered incalculable losses, but none more horrifying than the trap embedded in Gumshoe Rock.
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Mortimer Angel, ex-IRS Agent and now a Private Investigator in training and his girlfriend, Lucy another PI in training have just left their favorite haunt when Lucy sees the top of her Mustang convertible is slashed.
But that’s not the worst thing they see. On the car seat lies a human skull and the carcasses of several giant ants ..dead, of course.
Once again, Mortimer’s fame as a finder of people … usually dead… is still with him. He knows who the skull belongs to … the senior IRS Agent in Nevada. He’s a man no one has ever liked and he’s been missing for several months.
Working a separate embezzlement case, he also starts looking into the disappearance and apparent murder of the IRS Agent. It’s only when the cases start to intertwine that Mort and Lucy are facing the most lethal situation of their lives.
This is the 4th outing for Mortimer and is easily read as a stand alone. There are many references to things that happened in the first books, and I highly recommend starting at the beginning.
This is well-written with lots of action involving not only the IRS but the FBI as well. Mort is a great series character with his dry sense of humor and witty dialogue. Lucy is just as much fun, as is “Ma” … the absolute best PI in Nevada.
Many thanks to the author / Oceanview Publishing / Edelweiss for the advanced digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
Mort’s superpower kicks in again… body parts find him whether he wants them to or not. If you haven’t been reading the series, Rob Leininger does a decent job of catching you up by including references to Mort’s previous cases. However, you should not be reading book 4, unless you’ve read books 1-3 because you’re missing out on some terrific writing.
There is a lot of storytelling happening in this series. I would liken it to watching the ‘A’ block of The Rachel Maddow Show where you sometimes wonder just where things are going. Like Rachel, Leininger takes all the strings he has thrown out there and pulls them all together so it all makes perfect sense. There is nothing in the story that will not prove to be part of the plot.
There is one more book in the series (so far?), GUMSHOE IN THE DARK, that I started reading immediately upon finishing GUMSHOE ROCK. The Mortimer Angel series is about starting over and experiencing life changing moments in a new career. Mort discovered he has a soul so he quit being an IRS field thug in favor of becoming a PI in training. His stomping grounds are the streets of Reno, Nevada and the surrounding desert along with forays to Las Vegas. His mental mentors are Sam Space and Mike Hammer… sometimes Magnum, PI. There’s enough humor and noir snark in these page-turners to curl your lips into a smile, maybe even a guffaw or two, but watch out for the sucker punch that will make you gasp as you turn the pages a little faster.
Do I love these books? You bet I do!
situational-humor, verbal-humor, private-investigators, murder, blackmail, buffoons, nevada
Hilarious! The publisher’s blurb is a pretty good start, but it gets more convoluted and ROFL with each page. No erotica but funny innuendos, and Mort is a heavy drinker of. ..noncaf soda. The mystery revolves around a satire on the IRS with guest appearances by a couple of cartoonish FBI agents and other caricatures. The dialog is fun, the characters certainly are, and it has a real plot! Loved it!
Louis B Jack is fantastically believable as Mort who is both character and narrator in a low key, tongue in cheek way.
I won this audiobook in a giveaway!
I really win!
I enjoyed reading about this quirky Detective.
I really am enjoying the quirky characters!
smart and witty
Characters & plot stops contrived.
An easy mystery series set in northern Nevada; authentic descriptions of the area.
Fun read! The characters are quirky and make you smile. The plot is just complex enough to keep you engaged but not up all night. Definitely a solid story.
I am giving it 4 stars because of language and some gritty scenes’ descriptions. Not for the young. But the characters are great, the plot was twisty and not obvious, and it was a good read.
Reminds me of the 1940’s or 1950’s myseries. Well done.
I really enjoyed the way the author writes. I would have prefer ed less bed/bath story’s from the main characters.
Only read this if “Dumb and Dumber” is one of your favorite movies