Shoot the Moon
A Rainey Hall Mystery
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
Private investigator Rainey Hall stumbles into a dark mystery from her past that embroils her with an underground society of artists, a dangerous new drug, and a string of violent deaths.
While in high school, Rainey spent a summer taking advantage of the wildfires near Los Angeles to break into the empty houses of the rich and famous with her best friends, Alice and Spencer, committing small acts of larceny. These acts of rebellion culminated in a big theft from a powerful, well-connected musician with underworld ties. Days later, Alice went missing.
Now—nine years later—Rainey is a private detective chasing a missing person case. Chloe, a young vulnerable artist with a history of substance abuse, disappeared from her parents' house without a trace. As she digs into the case, Rainey not only discovers a string of missing artists, but connections to Alice, a case that had gone cold years ago. Diving back into her own past and Alice’s disappearance, the investigation quickly becomes more twisted and dangerous than Rainey'd ever anticipated. She unearths a mysterious society steeped in drugs, art, and some of the most influential people in Los Angeles.
Powerful forces begin to close in on Rainey as she finds herself in a race against time to save Chloe—and finally reveal the truth of what happened to Alice all those years ago.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barry's undercooked sequel to Double Exposure finds Hollywood PI Rainey Hall starting to feel like she's chasing ghosts when a missing persons case throws her back into her difficult past. Rainey realizes she may be entering dangerous waters when she volunteers to search for 17-year-old beauty Chloe Delmonico, whose case shares disturbing similarities with the unsolved disappearance of Rainey's childhood best friend nine years earlier. As Rainey begins to probe potential links between the cases, including a rock star turned political power broker and a well-connected drug dealer with a taste for underage girls, pushback from L.A.'s most influential circles suggests she's struck a nerve—and that the stakes may be even higher than she thought. Barry is too talented a writer for Rainey's plunge into greed, graft, and murder not to have its moments—especially the heart-pounding, cinematic climax set during an orgy at a haunted hotel. Unfortunately, many of the twists seem arbitrary, and several characters, including Rainey's agency partner, Lola, are unconvincing. Lacking both the daring plot and sizzling queer tension of its predecessor, this disappoints.