Don’t Ever Look Back

Edgar-finalist Friedman injects a darker tone into his alternately humorous and moving sequel to 2012’s Don’t Ever Get Old. In 1965, a master thief known as Elijah, a Jew who survived the Holocaust by doing whatever he needed to, invited series lead Buck Schatz, then an officer with the Memphis, Tenn., police department, to join a plot to rob a bank, hoping that their shared religion would make him agreeable. Schatz declined, but despite his best efforts to foil the robbery, and despite a seemingly impregnable bank vault, Elijah pulled off the heist. In 2009, Elijah resurfaces and tells the 88-year-old Schatz, who now resides in an assisted-living facility, “I need you to keep me safe as long as you’re able, and if I am killed, I want you to rain vengeance upon my enemies.” Though he has memory loss and hasn’t yet healed from injuries suffered in the first book, Schatz rises to the occasion. The howdunit of the 1965 crime will please Golden Age puzzle fans. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Apr.)