At the start of Spiegelman's fine third crime novel to feature New York City PI John March (after Black Maps
and Death's Little Helpers
), March's Wall Street executive brother, David, comes to March for help with a particularly nasty problem. David has been having torrid sex with a woman he met on the Internet who goes by the name of Wren, and now she's threatening to go public with their affair. David stands to lose his wife and his job unless March can find out what's going on. It turns out that Wren's not a blackmailer—she's a performance artist who videotapes men cheating on their wives, then sells the tapes to art collectors. When Wren turns up dead, David becomes the chief suspect. The melancholy March, his personal life in tatters, hovers constantly on the edge of depression, but he loves his work, and it's this passion that keeps him where readers will want him in the future: on the job. Spiegelman doesn't break new ground, but he continues to be one of today's best practitioners of neo-noir. Author tour. (Feb.)
