The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery

Readers who like gritty noir leavened by genuine heart and a healthy dollop of erudition a 93-year-old Phillip Marlowe makes an appearance will love Shannon's fourth Jack Liffey mystery (after The Poison Sky). Shannon returns to a Los Angeles the Hollywood types don't even drive through. Jack Liffey, who hunts missing kids, lost his once comfy life in the aerospace bust. The job, wife and custody of his beloved daughter are gone. What he's got is a jealous girlfriend, a junker car, a disconcerting fear of death and a sentimental bent toward trying to protect the innocent. He crosses the ""Orange curtain"" between the random craziness of L.A. and Orange County's Little Saigon to search for Phuong Minh, a Vietnamese bookseller's daughter. The compassionate, intelligent sleuth is just beginning to pick his way through gang clashes, county politics and successful comes-ons by Phuong's mentor, lovely, aggressive businesswoman Tien Joubert, when Phuong's body is found in the hills. She was shot, apparently the victim of a serial killer. From the start, Shannon has given readers an uneasy idea of who that killer might be. Young Billy Gudger's story unfolds alongside Jack Liffey's and an obsessive, lonely, frightening story it is. When the parallel lines meet, Shannon delivers a tour-de-force climax, with the action believably, and beautifully, driven by each character's needs. There's nothing super-heroic about Jack Liffey, but he's an unusually decent and interesting guy. (Apr. 1) Forecast: Relatively unknown, Shannon could break out with this book, rights to which have already been sold to the U.K., Germany, France and Japan.