Loyalty

What starts, in Thoft’s dazzling first novel, as a missing-persons case for Boston PI Fina Ludlow—the search for her sister-in-law, Melanie—swells through layers of familial secrets, lies, and betrayals to something approaching Greek tragedy. The Ludlows’ dysfunctionality is no secret to Fina, the lone surviving daughter and nonlawyer in this clan of high-powered ambulance-chasers, for whom she works as an in-house investigator. When Fina digs into Melanie’s troubled marriage to her brother Rand, she begins to discover disturbing—and dangerous—links to the city’s criminal underbelly, from mobster Mark Lamont to Back Bay madam Bev Duprey. Fina’s two hunky friends with benefits, Det. Cristian Menendez and exotic masseur Milloy, join her on an adrenaline-pumping chase. Although Thoft tips her big bombshell too soon, readers will be eager to see more of smash-mouth Fina, a hard-boiled throwback equally comfortable shooting from the hip or the lip. Agent: Helen Brann, the Helen Brann Agency. (June)