Don’t Ask, Don’t Follow

A Portland paralegal gets roped into a deadly game targeting the city’s poor in this slick suspense novel from Keliikoa (the Kelly Pruett series). Beth Ralston, a paralegal at her father’s law firm in Portland, Ore., ducks out of the company Christmas party to locate her missing boss, Craig Bartell. When she gets to Craig’s office, she finds him dead, and glimpses her older sister, investigative reporter Lindsay, fleeing out of the building’s back entrance. While she waits for the police to arrive, she discovers Lindsay’s phone, with an unsent text to Beth typed on the screen (“Don’t ask. Don’t follow”). There’s also a suspicious recent message from Craig. Shocked and full of questions, Beth sets out to find her sister—but her self-absorbed father, concerned with keeping up appearances during his Portland mayoral campaign, seems determined to stop her search. As Beth pries further, she stumbles on a harrowing plot involving the city’s homeless; from there, the body count rises steadily. The denouement is a little far-fetched, and some of the supporting characters collapse into caricature, but Keliikoa provides enough action and plot turns to keep thrill seekers hooked to the end. It’s a bingeworthy beach read. Agent: Sandy Harding, Spencerhill Assoc. (June)