Nevada noir aptly describes this mystery set vividly in the desert outside Las Vegas. The hard-boiled detective is, in fact, an ex-sheriff’s deputy turned cowboy, “Fats” Rangle, and political corruption oozes out of Las Vegas to taint even the small rural community of Blue Lake in Pinenut County. The plot is tautly paced and involves an old plane crash, a missing briefcase full of money and maybe some secrets even more worth killing for, and dead bodies galore. There are strippers, muscle-bound henchmen, salt-of-the-earth ranchers, shadowy corporations hiding behind holding companies, corporate “fixers,” politicians with an interest in water rights, a sleazy P.I., possibly corruptible city cops, and a love interest for our hard-boiled investigator—but can she be trusted? Plus, there are horses, mountain lions, dusty dirt roads with the scent of sage and piñon. In short, the novel is jam-packed with all the elements that make a good noir, all drenched in the hot desert atmosphere of Nevada. It kept me turning pages, gave enough clues that I could pat myself on the back for figuring some things out ahead of time, but kept some secrets right until the end. Fats has some serious anger management issues, and I didn’t think I’d care for him much at all, but by the end I was rooting for him, and even glad that there seems to be the possibility of a sequel or two. ( )

I received this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program.

An easy to read and intriguing story, about a whole lot of things, but mainly political corruption and one man’s struggle to keep his head above financial woes and the mire of society.

Fats Radler is, as we hear so many times, an “ex”-Deputy. There is a residual bitterness that he did not get the sheriff’s job, but has tried to move on with his life.

A nephew, who is also a coworker, goes missing, which is unusual, and then Fats finds a missing crashed light aircraft which was rumoured to have a significant amount of political money onboard. There’s no sign of the briefcase containing the money when Fats inspects the plane, but clearly, he is not the first person to have been there. He puts two and two together.

From there the story becomes more complex. There are local and state politics at play, the underbelly of Las Vegas (let’s be honest here: Vegas is a weird town before you scratch the surface and get involved with organised crime), missing persons, dodgy women, hired thugs, a woman slowly losing her mind, and hard-working ranchers just trying to get along.

It wouldn’t be a thriller/noir story without an unexpected twist or two, and the reader will find them here.

A couple of things bothered me, as a non-Nevadan and non-American. At one point, there’s a violent fist-fight at a funeral, and yet everyone in attendance seems to be quite calm about this. I know this is American, and partly set in Las Vegas, but wouldn’t gunshots in a domestic suburb raise alarm in the community? Wouldn’t first responders be called? ( )

Really well crafted pseudo-noir - it's set in Vegas and the Nevada desert, so it's never going to feel like 60's Paris of traditional noir, but it has the same feel, languid descriptions dark undertones and a little blurring of the moral lines.

Fats Radler is more or less enjoying life, having taken early retirement from the town police he's living with his brother and sister-in-law on a ranch part of a small town a couple of hours away from Vegas. A trip up-country reveals a small plane that's been missing for a couple of years, along with some footprints to indicate it's already been found and not reported. He escapes the media circus to head to Vegas where it's last heard his cousin had been spending more money than it seems likely he'd come by honestly.

There's dangerous women, dodgy sheriff's, gangsters, hoodlums and politicians and everything else you'd want from a noir detective - even Fats has his own dark past. Occasionally the descriptions get carried away and there's perhaps a little too much complexity to the plot, but it is all made clear and wrapped up It doesn't feel like the start of a series, but there is perhaps room for more stories in the setting.

Really quite enjoyed this. ( )

An interesting cast of characters who are all involved in 2mysteries. “Fats” Rangel is my favorite character in this story. He’s an ex deputy in a town outside of Las Vegas.
Each character in this story adds a little bit more to the story. ( )