Everything Is Jake: A T.R. Softly Detective Novel

Lieberman (The Aleph Solution as Webster Mews, with Sandor Frankel) makes his solo fiction debut with a lively, if at times over-the-top, series launch. Confusion reigns in courtrooms across the country as mobsters suddenly recant their testimony just days after publicly confessing to lives of crime. A federal attorney recruits a college friend, Washington, D.C., PI TR Softly, to get to the bottom of what’s going on. For Softly—who along with his lifelong friend Khaki Blumenthrace opened their first detective agency after foiling a bank robbery at the age of 12—the search quickly leads to a secret subsection of the FBI, where technology has been developed for swapping personalities between bodies as a form of mind control. Events take a complicated turn when Softly finds that Khaki is also part of the project. Meanwhile, threats of assassination loom as an arrogant, narcissistic American president announces on live TV his brainstorm for defunding most of the federal government. The various strands come together in a satisfying if overly complicated conclusion. Witty prose complements the clever plotting. Readers will eagerly await Softly’s return. (Oct.)