Storm Cell: A Lewis Cole Mystery

A jumbled plot mars DuBois’s 10th mystery featuring retired Department of Defense intelligence analyst Lewis Cole (after 2015’s Blood Foam). Tough guy Felix Tinios, who claims his official occupation is as a security consultant, is taking a puzzling tack fighting the seemingly solid circumstantial case against him—supported by video surveillance footage and his 9 mm SIG Sauer with his fingerprints at the crime scene—for murdering Tyler Beach, N.H., businessman Fletcher Moore. Felix refuses to talk to the only guy who appears to believe in his innocence, his friend Lewis, and he switches from his savvy usual counsel, Raymond Drake, to lawyer Hollis Spinelli, who looks to be making the prosecution’s case for them. Lewis’s efforts to rekindle romance with now-engaged former flame Paula Quinn, a local journalist covering the trial, as well as threats from Boston thugs provide intermittent diversion from the arbitrary twists and surfeit of suspects, but by the end some readers may feel bamboozled by the literary equivalent of a marathon game of three-card monte. (Nov.)