Last Dance

Fleishman’s impressive sequel to 2019’s My Detective puts Det. Sam Carver of the LAPD on the case of Katrina Ivanovna, a famous Russian ballerina who was poised to reclaim her former glory on stage before being found dead of an apparent overdose in her apartment. Carver suspects foul play, but when the ballerina’s body is stolen from the morgue, the cause of death may never be determined. Was it an accidental overdose, or suicide, or did someone kill her? Carver gets on the trail of mysterious Russians who were threatening her and wanted her now missing diaries, in which she might have revealed family connections to KGB agents and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Fleishman nicely evokes Los Angeles, “a metropolis of spirits and distant lights, a cool, dark place of lies that spin along the coast and blow across the desert.” A hard-boiled, world-weary hero in the classic tradition of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, Carver will also appeal to fans of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. Fleishman is on his way to becoming a master of contemporary L.A. noir. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Nov.)