The Now-and-Then Detective: A Jack Starkey Mystery

In Wells’s affable third Jack Starkey mystery (after 2018’s The Dollar-a-Year Detective), the retired Chicago homicide detective, who resides on a houseboat and owns a bar in Fort Meyers Beach, Fla., is persuaded by local police chief Cubby Cullen to assist rookie detective Allie Duncan in investigating the execution-style murder of an eccentric 82-year-old Chicago billionaire, Henry Wilberforce, in his Florida home. Known for his generous philanthropy, Henry had been behaving oddly and giving away vast sums of money and major gifts to random people and institutions. The only living heirs to the vast Wilberforce family fortune—Henry’s idle nephew and his two nieces, one of whom is a socialite and the other married to an eminent attorney—top the suspect list. The suspense rises as Starkey visits Key West, Fla.; Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Santa Monica, Calif. Staunch reconnaissance work, a talent for antagonizing suspects, and help from Duncan enable Starkey to figure out whodunit, though proving the culprit’s guilt is the biggest obstacle. The breezy narrative is as suave and witty as the tale’s lead. (Mar.)