Starred review from May 24, 2021
Viskic’s razor-sharp third mystery featuring deaf Australian PI Caleb Zelic (after 2018’s And Fire Came Down) finds Zelic at a Melbourne children’s farm, where he’s arranged to meet a prospective client, Martin Amon. When Amon doesn’t show, Zelic goes looking for him and finds him dead in a shed with his face blown off in an apparent professional execution. Zelic’s discovery leads to questioning by the Australian Federal Police, whose interest is explained after Zelic is approached by Senior Constable Imogen Blain. Blain reveals that she suggested Amon contact Zelic—and that the dead man had been a colleague. Suspicious of Blain, Zelic refuses to help her, but she responds by saying she has proof he killed someone and demands he lead her to his longtime partner, Frankie Reynolds, who recently betrayed him. More deaths follow, as Viskic ratchets up the pressure on her sympathetic lead. Zelic’s deafness is cleverly integrated into the plot, as his variable ability to read lips leads to misunderstandings, and his disability is used against him in an unexpected way in a climactic scene. James Ellory
and Paul Cleave fans will be pleased.