Created by Grant Bywaters
In Farewell, Las Vegas (2020), former New England cop JOE RODDICK is now a Sin City private op, tough enough to get by, but human.
His daughter Kaylee seems set on stepping into her father’s footsteps, and she’s already occasionally helping him out on his cases, mostly with computer stuff.
But it’s all up for grabs when Joe takes on what he thinks is a slam-dunk missing persons case on behalf of the Lucky Hearts Casino.
And he gets shot.
Seems an unstoppable, out-of-town hitman known as “The Scorpion” (Sheesh!) is looking looking for the same man–and cutting a bloody swatch through Vegas as he does it.
Recovering from his wound, Roddick realizes he–and possibly Kaylee–are still in danger, and that there’s something not quite right going on at Lucky Hearts.
Bywater’s does a good job of painting the seamy side of Vegas, the characterization solid, and the relationship between Joe and Kaylee refreshing. The book was subsequently nominated for a Shamus in the Best Paperback Original category, but so far there’s been no sequel.
Too bad.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author, Grant Bywaters, is a former licensed private investigator who wrote The Red Storm, his first novel, while finishing his bachelor’s degree in psychology at Portland State University in Oregon. The book, which introduced William Fletcher, a Black private eye in Depression-era New Orleans, won the The St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest in 2014.
NOVELS
- Farewell, Las Vegas (2020) |Â Buy this book |Â Kindle it!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Viva Las Vegas
Sin City Sleuths. - The St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Contest
Winners 1986-2014.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
