Next of Kin: An Annie McIntyre Mystery

Annie McIntyre deals with bloodshed and blood relations in Allen’s atmospheric third whodunit featuring the 26-year-old PI (after Hard Rain). It’s a sweltering August in the small town of Garnett, Tex., and Annie has her plate full as maid of honor for her cousin Nikki’s wedding. During one of the prenuptial parties, she’s approached by local musician Clint Marshall, the groom’s brother and best man. Adopted as a baby, he wants Annie to help him find his birth parents. The case seems straightforward enough: Annie uses Ancestry.com to locate Clint’s biological brother, Cody, and his father, who’s serving time in prison for a years-old bank robbery. Things take a turn, however, when Cody is found dead and Clint disappears. With the aid of her 85-year-old grandfather, Leroy, a former county sheriff, and his former deputy, Mary-Pat Zimmerman, Annie searches West Texas’s bars and motels in search of answers. Eventually, she turns her focus to Clint’s jailbird father. Allen conjures a suitably noirish mood from the opening pages, and renders even her secondary characters in three dimensions. With regional intrigue and plenty of satisfying sleuthing, this series merits a long run. (Apr.)