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Meltzer introduced Jim Zigarowski, a mortician, and Nola Brown, who can fairly be called a woman of mystery (she was trained as a soldier), in The Escape Artist (2018) and expanded on their unusual relationship in its sequel, The Lightning Rod (2022). But this new novel is the best yet. It begins with the murder of a man we barely know, introduces a decades-old mystery involving one of Zig’s closest friends, and only gets more complicated after that. The story moves at a brisk clip, but the author doesn’t neglect his central characters. He reveals new aspects of Zig and Nola and explores new depths to their relationship, which is not romantic (she’s young enough to be his daughter) but does have an emotional intensity to it). This is Meltzer at his finest, with a tightly constructed conspiracy, colourful characters, a deeply evil villain, and the kind of satisfying payoff that leaves the reader with a pounding pulse and a grin on their face. Tremendous.

Publishers Weekly
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Meltzer’s high-octane third thriller featuring mortician Jim “Zig” Zigarowski and military artist Nola LaPointe (after The Lightning Rod) starts strong and never takes its foot off the gas. At the outset, a terminally ill man named Andrew Fechmeier conceals an unidentified, ultravaluable object in the lining of an old suit, then asks a Maryland funeral home to hold onto the suit until he’s buried in it. That day comes sooner than Andrew expects when, shortly thereafter, he’s gunned down by an unseen assailant. As Nola’s twin, New Jersey cop Roddy LaPointe, investigates, he comes to believe that Fechmeier’s murder may be tied to the decades-old death of Roddy and Nola’s mother, who was killed in front of the three-year-old siblings by someone seeking a similar object. To help his inquiry, Roddy recruits his friend Zig, who in turn involves Nola in the proceedings, despite her reluctance to dig up the trauma of her mother’s murder. As usual, Meltzer infuses the action with an embarrassment of jaw-dropping plot twists. The author’s fans will be more than satisfied. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME. (Jan.)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

An unlikely duo deals with multiple connected murders. Andrew Fechmeier, dying from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, stitches a secret object in the suit he plans to be buried in and leaves it in a funeral home. Then in a motel, an attacker stabs him to death when he doesn’t divulge where the object is, setting up a series of slayings in this tense thriller. The trouble had started years ago with a group of teenagers calling themselves The Breakfast Club, named after the movie. They’d stolen the object that now is getting them killed, one by one. This is the third outing for Zig and Nola, who are not friends or colleagues—she doesn’t even especially like him, but each has helped the other in times of dire need. Jim “Zig” Zigarowski is a skilled mortician who has helped make many combat victims look presentable. An amiable but odd fellow, “it took a mortuary to make him feel alive." He speaks kindly to the dead as he stitches together parts of their skulls and dresses them presentably for viewing. “You know how to speak funeral,” he’s told, and when he spots fake morticians at the funeral home, he sees trouble. Nola Brown is a sketch artist whose personality grew a protective shell due to an unusually messed-up childhood. Nola’s mother, Daniella, died, supposedly by suicide, when Nola and her twin brother, Roddy, were 3 years old. But she has Zig’s admiration and gratitude, as she had saved the lives of both Zig’s daughter and Zig himself. But Roddy, now a cop estranged from Nola, believes their mother was murdered by the same person who killed Fechmeier and for the same reason. Nola has no good feelings for Daniella and would as soon forget her. Nola generally walks around feeling pissed, but underneath that hardness is a smart, caring person. There will probably never be an action figure of Zig the amiable mortician who is strangely attracted to pain, because the real energy comes from Nola, who may or may not survive hellacious hand-to-hand combat with a bad guy. Dark and quirky fun. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.