cover image Walla Walla Suite (A Room with No View)

Walla Walla Suite (A Room with No View)

Anne Argula, . . Ballantine, $12.95 (271pp) ISBN 978-0-345-49842-7

Hard-boiled, fast-talking Quinn, a Seattle cop turned PI, faces new challenges in her edgy second outing (after Argula’s Edgar-nominated 2006 debut, Homicide My Own ). Quinn has scored a job with Vincent Ainge, a mitigation investigator who helps keep convicted serial killers off death row. She’s also taken on her first case as a PI: finding Eileen Jones, a popular, attractive 18-year-old who vanished from her job in Vincent’s office building. Vincent’s attraction to Abby Jones, Eileen’s mother, interferes more than it helps with Quinn’s investigation, but his connections become invaluable when Eileen’s body is found, and Roger Merck, a disturbed man with a record of sexual assault, is charged with the murder and due to be executed if convicted. Quinn, suspicious of Merck’s sudden confession, digs deeper and learns the shocking, brutally poignant truth. Quinn sometimes comes off too tough and cynical, but Argula takes care to show her emotional side as well, creating an impressively well-rounded and modern heroine. (Sept.)