The Hollow Girl

In Coleman’s solid ninth Moe Prager novel (after 2013’s Onion Street), the PI and wine merchant falls off the wagon, big-time, after the woman he just proposed to, Pam, is crushed beneath the wheels of a high-school grad’s new Jeep Wrangler on a Brooklyn street. Prager feels guilty because he sent Pam to get the Sunday Times instead of going himself. A plea for help from an old friend rouses him from his stupor—Nancy Lustig’s grown daughter, Sloane, has disappeared. Sloane was an Internet sensation in 1999, when she posted a video ostensibly showing herself attempting suicide, leading to frantic searches from viewers who believed she was for real. Soon, a body turns up, and Prager finds himself again butting heads with the NYPD as he tries to locate Sloane. Despite the routine plot, this entry will resonate even with newcomers by dint of Prager’s eloquently expressed bleak worldview. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (May)