Blues in the Night

January 9, 2012
In this tense, fast-moving crime novel from Nero Wolfe Award–winner Lochte (Sleeping Dog), ex-con Dave “Mace” Mason returns to Los Angeles to do a favor for an old friend, mobster Paulie Lacotta. Since Lacotta is reluctant to explain why he wants Mace to shadow his ex-girlfriend, beautiful Angela Lowell, Mace turns for help to club owner Abe Garfein, who knows the L.A. scene. When pressed, Lacotta reveals that Angela may have screwed up a big deal and could be romantically involved with rival crook Tiny Daniels. Things heat up after someone tries to kill Lacotta, and Mace walks in on a bloodbath at Daniels’s beach house. Mace plays his cards close to the vest as he tries to figure out just what Angela’s role is in the deadly game Lacotta has gotten mixed up in. Tough, independent Mace is a wild card and one that Lochte should play again. Agent: Mel Berger, William Morris.

April 1, 2012
Ex-con Dave "Mace" Mason gets way more than he bargained for when he agrees to shadow his old friend Paulie Lacotta's ex-girlfriend. It's not as if Mace owes Lacotta. If anything, it's the other way around, since Mace's refusal to give up the small-time crook to the feds cost him a stretch in Pelican Bay. Maybe Bayou Royal, where Mace had been working with his dad since his release, just felt too slow. So he's back in L.A., living at the Florian on Sunset, where his window looks straight into Angela Lowell's apartment. Art appraiser Angie doesn't go out much--just small trips to Slick on Melrose and Cruise Line on Hollywood Boulevard. When she pulls up to Honeymoon Drug Store, things begin to get interesting. But they really heat up when she drives her yellow Mustang out to Malibu to visit Tiny Daniels, one of Paulie's mobbed-up rivals. Barging past the guardhouse at Tiny's gated community, Mace finds Tiny and his houseman Carlos shot dead, the security men dying and Angela naked in bed in a Demerol stupor. He knows that the plastic coin in Tiny's lifeless mouth must be the key, but it isn't until he outwits three pairs of strongmen--British hit man Thomas and his mentally challenged brother Timmie, government agents Corrigan and Drier and their bearded Russian counterparts Gulik and Klebek--that he learns the value of the seemingly worthless toy. Lochte (The Talk Show Murders, 2011, etc.) is just as fast-paced and funny flying solo as when he's wingman for Al Roker or Christopher Darden, both of whom he's collaborated with in the past.

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January 1, 2012
Lochte, best known as coauthor of mystery novels with Al Roker and Christopher Darden, turns in an excellent performance with this gritty solo effort. Dave Mason is an ex-con working for his friend, crime boss Paulie Lacotta. Mason is keeping an eye on Paulie's former girlfriend, who's recently taken up with Paulie's former friend and current competitor. Mason figures something bad is going to happen, but he doesn't figure on winding up in the sights of a highly unusual pair of hitmen, and he certainly has no way of knowing that something that looks like a counterfeit coin, found clenched in a dead man's teeth, is going to cause him a helluva lot of aggravation. Perhaps because his name is so often associated with celebrity coauthors, Lochte is a somewhat underappreciated writer. This solid, well crafted thriller with a likable protagonist and an engaging cast of supporting players should remind readers that he is a dependable storyteller in his own right.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)