Twice the Trouble

When Noland Twice, the protagonist of Clifton’s accomplished PI thriller debut, was 19, he was a star safety with the University of Florida’s football team. After college, he excelled as a cop, and at one point boasted the best arrest record in Florida. Then a vengeful meth dealer framed Twice for drug possession. He swiftly lost his job and wound up spending two years in prison. Following his exoneration, Twice reinvented himself as a Central Florida gumshoe. Now, attorney Faith Carlton has retained him to trace Arthur Valkenberg, a partner in a massive Florida construction firm and suspected embezzler who’s gone missing. Carlton hopes that tracking down Valkenberg might help exonerate her client, Frank Bisby, a partner at the firm who’s been charged with fraud. Shortly after Twice starts investigating, he stumbles on a corpse in Valkenburg’s apartment, transforming the missing persons case into something much more complex. Twice is a rough-but-lovable lead, neither too squeaky-clean nor too nasty to root for, and Clifton takes the central mystery in surprising and satisfying directions. Fans of Michael Kortya’s Lincoln Perry series will be eager to spend more time with this memorable sleuth. Agent: Cindy Bullard, Birch Literary. (Mar.)