Father's Day

Some overly familiar situations, including a kidnap victim held in an abandoned warehouse and an unwilling patient kept at a remote sanitarium, undermine Gilman's otherwise promising debut, winner of the Minotaur Books/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel award. Former Philadelphia cop Louis Klein returns to the decaying and dangerous neighborhood he grew up in to help Sarah Blackwell—the widow of his old partner, Sam, who supposedly committed suicide—find her missing teenage daughter, Carol Ann. Klein and Sam vowed that if anything happened to one of them, the other would look after the partner's daughter. Klein, who has problems with his own feisty and impulsive daughter, navigates a bleak and unforgiving Philadelphia with grim bravado as he unravels the unsavory history of Carol Ann and her family. An impressive conclusion provides a serious jolt and appears to set Klein on the path to further gritty adventures. (May)