Frank Pavlicek, an ex-NYPD cop who's now a PI in Charlottesville, Va., returns to Manhattan on a missing pet case in his unsettling third outing (after 2003's Shamus Award–winning Cold Quarry
). Dr. Korva Lonigan, an animal rights activist and physician, suspects her angora cat, Groucho, has been abducted or killed, along with other pets belonging to residents of Grayland Tower, an art deco building on Central Park West. The feathers of a great horned owl may offer a clue to the falconer behind the disappearances. Could the “Kitty Hitter” be the Egyptian-American developer overseeing the renovation of Grayland Tower, who's involved in a tenant dispute? Straka ups the ante as the initially lightweight investigation grows darker with the shooting of two gang members in Central Park. After Frank, himself a falconer, finally meets the elusive falconer, he learns more than he wants to know about a far more serious criminal enterprise than nabbing pets. (Aug.)
