Broken Windows: A Duke Rogers PI Thriller

Set in 1994, Shamus Award winner Marks’s solid sequel to 2012’s White Heat shoves its dour hero into the thick of a brouhaha about undocumented aliens. While California voters wrangle about the looming vote on anti-immigrant Proposition 187, L.A. PI Duke Rogers befriends Marisol, one of his neighbors’ maids. When Marisol’s brother, Carlos, is killed in what the police say was an accident, Rogers volunteers to investigate. He soon finds a huge conspiracy that involves not just the brutal coyotes who smuggle aliens across the border and extort money from them afterward but also smug, self-righteous politicians and church officials who exploit vulnerable illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, a young woman climbs to the top of the Hollywood sign and jumps to her death—an act that may be linked to Carlos’s death. The book’s grim outlook is barely lightened by the tight friendship between Duke and his expressionless, shade-wearing buddy, Jack, whose relationship closely resembles that of Robert Crais’s popular Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Fans of downbeat PI fiction will be satisfied. (Sept.)