That Left Turn at Albuquerque
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A hardboiled valentine to the Golden State, That Left Turn at Albuquerque marks the return of noir master Scott Phillips.
Douglas Rigby, attorney-at-law, is bankrupt. He’s just sunk his last $200,000—a clandestine “loan” from his last remaining client, former bigshot TV exec Glenn Haskill—into a cocaine deal gone wrong. The lesson? Never trust anyone else with the dirty work. Desperate to get back on top, Rigby formulates an art forgery scheme involving one of Glenn’s priceless paintings, a victimless crime. But for Rigby to pull this one off, he’ll need to negotiate a whole cast of players with their own agendas, including his wife, his girlfriend, an embittered art forger, Glenn’s resentful nurse, and the man’s money-hungry nephew. One misstep, and it all falls apart—will he be able to save his skin?
Written with hard-knock sensibility and wicked humor, Scott Phillips’s newest novel will cement him as one of the great crime writers of the 21st century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this lackluster crime novel from Edgar finalist Phillips (The Ice Harvest), financially strapped Southern California attorney Douglas Rigby has stolen thousands from the account of his sole client, aged former TV producer Glenn Haskill, and is desperate to find some way of replacing the funds before his theft is detected. His initial plan to profit from a drug deal with a gang known as the Devil's Hammers fails after his less-than-sharp go-between hands over the product without getting the agreed-upon cash in return. That screwup leads to violence and only places Rigby further behind the eight ball, even as his real estate broker wife, who knows what's going on and has made few recent sales, fears that losing their home will make her a pariah in her field. Rigby comes up with another scheme, centered on art fraud that would also victimize Haskill, but the details don't generate much excitement. Nothing invites any empathy for Rigby, whose multiple sins include marital infidelity. Phillips has been more successful in the past in making readers engage with repellent leads.
