In Brogan's solid third Hallie Ahern mystery (after 2005's A Confidential Source
), the Providence, R.I., newspaper reporter homes in on an insurance scam after happening on a late-night auto accident. Hallie tries to rescue the victim from a car about to go up in flames, but the woman is already dead after crashing into a tree—"twice," according to the elderly woman who witnessed the accident. At the funeral for the victim—Lizzette Gorda, a 33-year-old mother of three boys—her husband, Manuel, says that the witness reported another car speeding away from the scene (a fishy change of tune), and Hallie notices mobster Tito Manaforte hulking among the mourners. Hallie smells an insurance scam that her addictive personality compels her to pursue. On the romantic front, a suave attorney distracts Hallie from her upstanding but undemonstrative new boyfriend, prosecutor Matt Cavanaugh. Intelligent but with her fair share of imperfections, Hallie makes a credible heroine. (May)
