The Big Con: A Chuck Restic Mystery

Phillips’s amiable third mystery featuring Chuck Restic (after The Perpetual Summer) finds the L.A. human resources corporate executive doing some fancy stepping to resolve the conflict between his boss, Pat Faber, and the dynamic duo of Julie St. Jean and Rebecca Piken, over the training sessions that the women’s consulting firm, Power of One, provides to Chuck’s company. Chuck first decides to talk with the pair, but when he and Rebecca arrive, separately, at Julie’s house, they come across the body of a woman, later identified as a friend of Julie’s named Lois Hearns. Julie disappears; a man with a gun shows up at Rebecca’s place looking for a man called Jimmy Fitch; and Chuck, with Rebecca in tow, discovers another body in Julie’s love nest. Chuck must sort out Julie’s complex relationships with Rebecca and Lois, as well as Julie’s confusing past as a librarian before she established Power of One. Phillips pokes wry fun at corporate life through his refreshingly humane investigator. (July)