The Accounting

A milksop of a protagonist sinks this overstuffed thriller from Lashner (Blood and Bone). J.J. Moretti, an unemployed Philadelphia mortgage broker, has a secret in his past. This secret—not revealed until about a fifth of the way through the book—is what still connects him to his high school friends Augie Iannucci, who lives in Las Vegas, and Ben, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. It’s also what gets Augie killed and sets mysterious thugs on J.J.’s trail. Extensive backstory and J.J.’s musings slow the action. J.J. cries constantly and waxes rhapsodic about the oddest things, including the street curbs in his suburb. He variously describes himself as a “calculating resentful snit,” an “asshole,” a “jerk,” and “stupid.” Lashner’s prose aims for the heights, but often as not stumbles, as when he compares “the granite faces of the Himalayas” to “the granite on the island in my kitchen.” Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Associates. (May)