The Abbey

First published as an e-book with sales totaling more than 750,000, Culver’s crime thriller introduces Det. Ash Rashid, a hard-drinking Muslim member of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Ash has the difficult task of notifying his sister and brother-in-law of the death of their 17-year-old daughter, Rachel, whose body was found in a guesthouse in a wealthy neighborhood. A toxicology report attributes her death to a cocaine overdose. Soon afterward, Rachel’s steady boyfriend, Robbie Cutting, kills himself. In a suicide note, Robbie admits that he drugged Rachel in order to get her to have sex with him. That’s enough for the lead detective to close the case, but Ash is sure that Robbie wouldn’t have needed to drug Rachel to achieve this end. The author dwells a lot on Ash’s drinking, but that won’t stop readers from enjoying a tale that offers sufficient novelty within a standard cop versus drug peddlers plot. (May)