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An urbane fugitive’s intention to keep a low profile is
destroyed when he witnesses an assassination.
Crime writer David Mitre, whose erudite first-person narration
suggests vintage Maugham, is hiding in plain sight in Cyprus, along with some 40,000
other “fugitives from Her Majesty’s justice.” As he sits near a bar at a table
overlooking the beach, an attractive woman sitting nearby is brutally, and
efficiently, stabbed to death. Mitre does nothing because he’s determined to
keep a safe distance from any investigation. His plan is foiled when expressive
local police detective Cyril Kiriakou questions him about the crime. In
strategically sprinkled bursts of information, Mitre reveals to the reader
that, while he’s a published author, he’s also a fugitive, a man of many
identities. Soon enough, FBI special agents Frank Kim and Delia Delacorte track
him down and make him an offer he can’t refuse: investigate the murder or face
imprisonment for his own crimes. As he probes, the cheeky Mitre can’t resist
using the names of various American crime writers as aliases. More details of
his colorful past emerge as his investigation brings him up against a glamorous
French actress, a pair of adorable young refugees, and a pack of Russian
mobsters. Through it all, his handlers at the FBI have an amusingly frustrating
time trying in vain to keep him on a short leash.
The prolific Grant (The Tattooed Heart, 2015, etc.)
offers a shaggy mystery, but one full of colorful characters, with a charming
raconteur at its center.
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