Lucidity

At the start of Carnoy’s spellbinding third thriller (after 2012’s The Big Exit), Max Fremmer, a book doctor who lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, learns from an NYPD cop that his client Candace Epstein, who recently told him that “she knew something bad about someone,” has been pushed in front of a car on Central Park West with fatal results. In his search for the truth behind Candace’s death, the wily Max gets involved with the Lucid Dreaming Center, an institute that helps people control their dreams. Flash back four months to California, where retired detective Hank Madden of the Menlo Park PD decides to look into the decades-old cold case of Stacy Walker, who disappeared—as did her husband, Ross, who was suspected of her murder. Hank gets busy digging up a backyard where Stacy might be buried. Max and Hank connect with amusing results as their two cases converge. Carnoy's sharp sense of humor and clever plotting—a character suffers a pair of setbacks involving a check he didn’t write and a text he didn’t send—make this novel a standout. Agent: John Silbersack, Trident Media Group. (Feb.)

This review has been corrected; the author's last name was previously misspelled in the last sentence.