The Green Lady: An Alex Mavros Mystery

The 2004 Athens Olympics provide the backdrop for Johnston’s absorbing fifth mystery featuring half-Greek, half-Scottish PI Alex Mavros (after 2012’s The Silver Stain). Angie Poulou, the wife of powerful businessman Paschos Poulou, hires Alex to find their missing 14-year-old daughter, but she doesn’t want Alex to let her husband know about the investigation. Meanwhile, a torturer known only as the Son is leaving a trail of the mutilated bodies of Demeter worshippers in his wake. Alex—with some help from his friend Yiorgos Pandazopoulos (aka the Fat Man)—follows the meager evidence to the small town of Paradheisos, where Paschos’s company is polluting the environment and Paschos’s lawyer friend, Rovertos Bekakos, is indulging his pedophilia. The banter between Alex and the Fat Man helps relieve the often grim action. Johnston does a good job concealing what exactly is happening and who’s working for or against whom until late in the game. Agent: Broo Doherty, Wade and Doherty (U.K.). (Mar.)