Nameless Dame
Murder on the Russian River
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Russian River Valley—laid-back, marijuana-steeped, and off-the-grid—is the backdrop for Bart Schneider’s new mystery featuring the tough and dogged detective Augie Boyer.
Augie takes a break from the bite of another Minnesota winter by visiting the California homestead of his longtime friend Bobby Sabbatini, who is celebrating the opening of his poetry-infused tavern, Ginsberg’s Galley. But Augie’s notoriety precedes him, and his arrival is met with a trip to a murder scene. Ruthie Rosenberg, a local who has fallen into a life of drugs and dependence, has been found at The Last Judgment Campground, shot twice in the head.
At the request of the Deputy Jesse Coolican, who’s loved Ruthie for years, Augie promises to investigate the case himself. No sooner than he starts to ask questions, Augie discovers the trail leading to Ruthie’s killer—or killers—is tangled with politics, religion, bold-faced lies, and suspicious double-lives. Even his closest friends are part of the fray.
Is Ruthie’s murder the work of a copycat? An escalated statement by the religious right? Only an outsider can discover the painful truth—and Augie must work quickly before the insular community buries the truth deep among its ever-growing secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schneider's second Augie Boyer mystery (after 2008's The Man in the Blizzard) takes the marijuana-smoking Midwestern PI out of Minneapolis and off his drug of choice only to deposit him in the pot-saturated heart of Northern California's Russian River Valley. Soon after Augie arrives at the "off-the-grid" cottage of his onetime assistant, Blossom, and her former police detective husband, Bobby Sabbatini, Ruthie Rosenberg, a party girl and drug user, is found murdered. While the killing dampens the area's optimistic New Age spirit, Augie is more interested in Blossom's friend Quince, an enticing and mercurial ex-con. Bobby, meanwhile, tries to keep the approaching opening of his "poetry karaoke bar," Ginsberg's Galley, on track. Rather than hackneyed drug humor, Schneider focuses on showing a community that, under Bobby's spell, has fallen in love with poetry. His charming and original characters should ensure returning readers for any future Augie Boyer outings.