The Life and Death of Rose Doucette

Hunsicker (the Arlo Baines series) delivers a stellar spine tingler about a PI who’s tasked with investigating his ex-wife’s murder. Three years after Dylan Fisher leaves the Dallas police force, divorces homicide detective Rose Doucette, and becomes a private eye, Rose calls him to ask for his help. Josh Gannon, a drug dealer fresh out of prison, has just been shot on the grounds of a ritzy hotel he could hardly afford. Rose sees Gannon’s death as an obvious murder, but her superiors pressure her to close the case as a suicide, so she ropes in Dylan to help her poke around on the side. Then Rose is murdered, with all evidence pointing toward Dylan as the killer. To clear his name, Dylan teams up with Rose’s second husband, defense attorney Tito Mullins, to figure out who might want Rose dead—a process that points toward cover-ups in Rose’s past that threaten to explode in the face of Dylan and his new flame. Marrying Dylan’s punchy first-person narration with the twisty plot mechanics of classic noir, Hunsicker delivers an engrossing, emotionally charged mystery that culminates in a satisfying series of gut punches. It’s a winner. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (Oct.)