Hot Start: A Cordell Logan Mystery

A double murder propels Logan’s well-paced, action-filled fifth mystery featuring flight instructor and former government assassin Cordell Logan (after 2015’s The Three-Nine Line). Late one night, big-game hunt guru Roy Hollister and his wife take a swim in the Africa-shaped pool on their estate in Rancho Bonita, Calif. The next morning, a gardener finds their bodies in the pool, each shot with large-caliber rifle bullets of a type used to fell elephants. When the police arrest animal-rights activist Dino Birch for the crime, Logan’s former father-in-law asks him to find out whether Birch is innocent. Logan discovers that Hollister, whose safari-chartering service took a hit in the 2008 financial crash, was using his aircraft to ferry high-priced European prostitutes to cities such as New York and Washington, D.C. Law enforcement took note, and Hollister was about to name names before a federal grand jury. Logan deals smoothly with thugs, prostitutes, politicians, and other lowlifes with only occasional stumbles en route to the satisfying conclusion. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. (Aug.)