Shoot ’Em Up

After a chaotic start to Mack’s wild third Maisie McGrane mystery (after 2015’s Choked Up), the Chicago cop goes undercover to infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel. A highlight of the operation is a comic encounter at a border crossing between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Tex., with a diarrheic bull. Meanwhile, Maisie’s lover, Hank Bannon, has disappeared with no word, and her new partner, bad boy Lee Sharpe, pursues her relentlessly. Lee’s behavior frequently crosses the line from sexy banter to harassment; he even gropes her in front of a DEA agent. Newcomers might be confused by Maisie’s byzantine backstory and the large cast of characters, including her rowdy family, but fans should enjoy wisecracking Maisie’s further adventures. The novel closes on a tantalizing note of moral ambiguity when Maisie admits that she genuinely likes most of the criminals she knows. Readers should be prepared for plenty of political snark (“I stuck out more than a constitutionalist at a DNC rally”). [em]Agent: Laura Bradford, Laura Bradford Literary Agency. (Oct.) [/em]