This novel picks up where Blackman’s Coffin (2008) left off. Iraq veteran Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson have opened a detective agency in Asheville. Their first client is an elderly woman who wants them to return a manuscript she stole from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his heirs. Shortly after Blackman retrieves the lock box containing the manuscript from the woman’s bank, the box is stolen from his office and the building’s security guard is killed. Blackman is also attacked, but the friend who saves him brings the message that rogues operatives from his Iraq days are out to get him. It appears that two different groups think that Blackman has riches that they want.
Like the earlier Sam Blackman novel, Asheville’s literary heritage figures in the plot. This new novel also brings in some controversial elements of the area’s past, including the World War II era POW camp in Hendersonville and the American fascist William Dudley Pelley. It makes for a heady mix and a great story.
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
