Quiver

A fatal hunting accident propels this disappointing debut set in Detroit and environs from Leonard, the son of legendary crime writer Elmore Leonard. Given that 16-year-old Luke McCall shoots an arrow that passes through a deer and kills his former race-car champion father, Owen, one might expect more focus on Luke’s psychological torment than on the efforts of Owen’s devastated widow, Kate, to contend with a string of unscrupulous suitors, starting with her old lover, Jack Curran, who once rescued Kate from a Peace Corps assignment in Guatemala turned ugly. Curran conceals not only his recent prison stint but also his continued association with a group of desperate and sadistic criminals, including Teddy Hicks, who assaulted Owen several years earlier. A kidnapping engineered by Hicks and company leads to a violent showdown at the McCalls’ hunting lodge. A muddled plot, one-dimensional characters and a predictable ending will leave readers hoping for better things in Leonard’s next novel. (May)