Eversz hits the jackpot in his fifth Nina Zero mystery (after 2005's Digging James Dean
) as his Hollywood tabloid photographer with the unsavory past confronts various challenges and emerges irrevocably changed but still standing. Nina (née Mary Alice Baker) is on the cusp of a breakthrough—an exhibition of her edgy photography at an art gallery—when she receives what appears to be a snuff film, whose victim has a Betty Boop tattoo exactly like one borne by Nina's featured model. Nina's quest for a killer sucks her into a maelstrom of perversion, crime and corruption. The fundamentally decent Nina has a toe in the "normal" world, but her status as an ex-con and parolee, her issues with her estranged and abusive father, even her fragile relationship with her young niece, all threaten to pull her back into the muck. This compelling, nerve-wracking, draining novel will leave readers hungry for the next in the series. (Feb.)
