Eve Diamond, having investigated Southern California's Asian and Latino communities, tackles the Russians in Hamilton's entertaining, well-researched fifth thriller to feature the ambitious L.A. Times
reporter (after 2005's Savage Gardens
). Eve is following reports of a mountain lion in Griffith Park when she discovers the bullet-ridden body of Dennis Lukin, the teenage son of recent Russian émigrés. That night, Eve is visited by Mischa Tsipin, an illegal Russian immigrant running from gangsters to whom he owes money and claiming to be a cousin of Eve's (her mother was Russian). At considerable personal risk, the indefatigable Eve sorts through false identities and changing alliances, confronting old and new Russian émigrés and their mafia as well as her own family history. Lending support are FBI agent Thomas Clavendish, an intractable cold warrior, and her reporter colleague, Josh Brandywine. As usual, Hamilton richly evokes seething, polyglot L.A., but the reader's suspension of disbelief may sag by the final shootout under the weight of too many coincidences and subplots. (Apr.)
