The Thin Edge: An Aloa Snow Mystery

In Townsend’s entertaining sequel to 2018’s See Her Run, Tick, one of “a trio of aging anarchists known to the denizens of San Francisco’s North Beach as the Brain Farm,” needs the help of his friend Aloa Snow, a journalist for an online newsmagazine. Tick’s junior college professor son, Burns Hamlin, is a person of interest in the recent stabbing murder of Corrine Davenport. Corrine, who had a fling with Burns, was the wife and primary caregiver of respected former FBI agent Christian Davenport, who’s now a paraplegic as the result of an automobile accident. Snow’s research creates more questions than answers and leads her to a religious cult, the Church of the Sacrificial Lamb. Townsend reveals Aloa’s foibles, such as the error in judgment that led to her disgrace and firing by the L.A. Times two years earlier, without slowing the narrative pace. Readers will enjoy her company as she takes them on a tour of foggy San Francisco, from millionaires’ mansions to a homeless encampment under a freeway. May she soon return for more adventures. Agent: Heather Jackson, Heather Jackson Literary. (May)