cover image The Superman Project: A Chico Santana Mystery

The Superman Project: A Chico Santana Mystery

A.E. Roman, Minotaur, $25.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-37501-0

Roman's excellent second Chico Santana mystery (after 2009's Chinatown Angel), another hard-boiled whodunit, finds the endearing New York City PI in bad shape, reduced to living in his small Bronx office on the eve of a divorce from his wife of a decade. Then 18-year-old Pablo Sanchez, "about 250 soft pounds of fat," and Pablo's mother, Esther, who's "wearing an old ‘Obama for President' campaign button," walk in the door. Pablo needs Chico's help tracing a missing couple: Brooklyn artist Gabby Gupta and her husband, Joey Valentin, with whom she was at odds and thus the NYPD's prime person of interest. Joey happens to be a childhood crony of Chico's. Pablo, a janitor working for a spiritual self-improvement center known as the Superman Project, is convinced that forces out to destroy the project framed Joey. Despite himself, Chico begins to buy into the conspiracy theory, especially after someone murders Esther. Roman keeps the action moving all the way through a wicked sting toward the end. (Aug.)