Under the Cold Bright Lights

In this beautifully written if flawed thriller from Ned Kelly Award–winner Disher (Signal Loss), former homicide detective Alan Auhl, who has come out of retirement to handle cold cases, and his team look into the discovery of a body found under an old concrete slab in a rural area near Melbourne, Australia. Their first task is to identify the Slab Man, a shooting victim, then to figure out who killed him and why. Another case for Auhl centers on a self-important doctor whose first and second wives died mysteriously, and who now believes his third wife wants him dead. Meanwhile, Auhl is managing a strange household of lodgers, including a fearful young mother involved in a bitter custody dispute over her 10-year-old daughter. Auhl crosses all kinds of lines to help people. The focus on such crimes as child abuse and religious scamming serves to show how justice is rarely gotten through institutional means. Unfortunately, readers will struggle to keep track of the multiple story lines. This is a rare misstep for Disher. [em](July) [/em]