Gone to Dust

At the start of Emmy Award–winning TV writer and playwright Goldman’s well-paced, humorous fiction debut, the police call Minneapolis-based PI Nils “Shap” Shapiro to a crime scene at the home of divorcée Maggie Somerville in Edina, Minn. Inside the house, it looks as if someone has dumped the contents of innumerable vacuum-cleaner bags over every surface, including Maggie’s dead body, which is lying on her bed. Shap’s sleuthing into this bizarre murder takes him from picture-perfect suburbs to the extravagant mansion of a wealthy real estate tycoon. Along the way, he passes through the apartment of a beautiful medical student and the plant-filled, overheated home of an entrepreneurial organic sheep farmer, with stops at many a bar and restaurant. With his wry, observant eye and quick wit, plus a pressing need to follow the truth into dark, uncharted places, Shap is a more optimistic version of Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer. Readers will look forward to his next investigative adventure. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (Aug.)