Second Skin

December 7, 2015
As Wiley explains in an author's note to his unconventional second Daniel Turner noir (after 2014's Blue Avenue), the Florida homicide detective always plays a supporting character, "the common element in others' lives and deaths, getting caught in the spirals of crime that he investigates." This time, the main players are Daniel's sister, Lillian, an English teacher, and her husband, Johnny Bellefleur, a skiptracer permanently scarred by his memories of his time dealing with dead bodies as an Army corpsman. Lillian takes a special interest in one of her students, 19-year-old Sheneel Greene, and is devastated when the young woman's partially decomposed body is found near a clay pit. Sheneel, who had a history of suicide attempts, is believed to have taken her own life. Johnny finds proof of foul play when he comes across Sheneel's arm, cleanly severed from the rest of her body. Wiley tosses several surprises in along the way to the tense conclusion. The book's strength lies in its insights into the well-developed characters, enhanced by alternating first-person narratives. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency.

Starred review from March 28, 2011
Fans of gritty PI novels will relish Shamus-finalist Wiley's third mystery featuring Chicago detective Joe Kozmarski (after 2010's The Bad Kitty Lounge). Early one morning, while staked out at a construction site to prevent thefts of building materials and equipment, Kozmarski spots two uniformed patrolmen pull up in a police cruiser. When he observes the cops helping a gang that arrives soon after make off with spools of copper wire, the gumshoe calls 911. Four squad cars pull up within minutes, and a firefight erupts. One of the resulting deaths puts Kozmarski, a former cop who was cashiered from the force in disgrace, in a difficult position. His only way out of the mess involves him infiltrating a wide-ranging conspiracy. Kozmarski, a well-developed flawed hero, would be right at home in a Chandler or Hammett novel. The relentless pacing makes the pages fly by, and the hard-edged prose is bracing.

September 15, 2015
A second dose of murderous troubles that hit all too close to home for Jacksonville homicide detective Daniel Turner and his family. Daniel's sister Lillian isn't the type to let things go. So when Sheneel Greene, one of her favorite students, goes missing, she asks her husband, skip tracer Johnny Bellefleur, to see if he can find her. Johnny demurs, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, for Sheneel's already dead. Since Johnny is another one who doesn't let things go, he asks Daniel for a peek at Sheneel's case file, only to hit the first of many brick walls. There's a file all right, and Daniel shows it to him, but he assures him that there's no case: Sheneel had tried to kill herself three times before, and the fourth time was presumably the charm. There's even a convenient note in the victim's own handwriting. Daniel doesn't seem to care that Sheneel's body was full of drugs that suicides rarely use or that someone's cut off her arm with a sharp implement. Not even the death of Sheneel's half brother, Alex, another very iffy suicide, sways him. So it falls to Johnny, still battling demons from his job bagging combat casualties for the Navy (Blue Avenue, 2014), and his sister to tie the deaths to the villainous Phelps family, whose long history of exploiting North Florida's resources and locals provides far too many suspects-Edward the monstrous patriarch, his rapacious son, Stephen, their wives and unacknowledged children-each of whom takes a turn in the spotlight before yielding to someone who looks even guiltier. Long before the curtain comes down, Lillian won't know who on Earth she can trust, and neither will you. Satisfyingly doom-and-gloomy, even though many readers will balk at the last round of dark revelations and the last spasm of violence that accompanies them.

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