Book Review: City of Secrets by P.J. Tracy

A thriller is often made or broken by the intensity of the villain. The City of Secrets’s Angel of Death is preternaturally evil, mysterious, and casts a pall on everyone whose lives are touched by them. Ringo, a confidential informant tells his Homicide handler that he’s leaving town because of a very-real specter: “This motherfucker is scary, and he’s somebody big.” He’s a “kind of a jefe,” he continues and one visit from him was enough for Ringo: “My buddy Chick in Culver City got a visit too. He says the dude is the angel of death, that all this rain and shit is a sign the devil is coming for us. Like in Revelations.” 

City of Secrets is the fourth Detective Margaret Nolan Los Angeles based mystery. Nolan has a great repartee with her co-workers in the “vaunted” Homicide Special Section. That said, her romantic relationship with fellow detective Remy Beaudreau appears to be an open secret, and how will that play out if Captain Mendoza clues in? Cue recollections of The Big Easy.

Remy Beaudreau’s low, smooth voice behind her startled as much as it catalyzed a furious rush of endorphins. She loved the sizzling high, but hated that she was a feeble pawn to biology in even the most inappropriate circumstances. She came from a long line of control freaks, and had probably absorbed the trait in the womb. Hormonal autopilot contravened her most basic principles.

Remy is smooth, attentive, wealthy and he listens to her so what’s not to love? But Maggie’s career success has been achieved through hard work, intelligence, and perseverance. Can she risk jeopardizing that? Maggie and Remy relationship weaves through the story, occasionally in the most one-degree-of-separation ways (like Remy catching a huge clue while nursing his sorrows because he’s having to drink alone at the Bel-Air bar).

In Los Angeles it’s not unusual for folks to moonlight in the film industry. Meet “Roscoe Miles, lead tech and dilettante filmmaker.” When Nolan is called out to a late-night crime scene during a monsoon, Ross steps up. Helpful, since her partner Al Crawford is stuck in L.A. traffic.

He gestured to the car. “This is a mess. Everything is soaked inside and out. We can’t lift prints until everything dries out, and it’s not going to impound until we work it on-site.”

 

“Can you get a generator and some heaters or fans?”

 

“Working on it.”

 

“You never disappoint, Ross.” She peered inside. No outward signs of a struggle. The man was mid to late fifties, she guessed; well-dressed, as she’d expected. His abundant, artfully graying hair was plastered to his skull. A droplet of water trickled down his artificially tight, blanched cheek, and dripped on the front of his sodden cashmere sweater. The small hole in the middle of his forehead was clean, scoured of blood by the rain. From the size and minimal damage, most likely a .22. “He saw it coming.”

 

“Yeah. Poor bastard. Carjacking?”

 

Possible, but those assholes usually carry bigger pieces. And his window is down. It’s been too cold and rainy for that all week, so there was another reason it was open, and it wasn’t to greet a carjacker.”

 

Ross brightened. “Maybe he knew his killer.”

P.J. Tracy has us on the ground floor of the investigation. What’s a “big, fancy car” doing “in a bad part of town?” Unusually, the car looks like it was driven there. The owner wouldn’t have brought it to Poppy’s body shop in the middle of a rainy night for mechanical work, so who was he meeting? Nolan’s partner is still delayed by the beastly weather. When Crawford finally arrives, he’s huddling under a tiny unicorn-decorated umbrella: Nolan takes a few surreptitious pictures. 

Ross finally has a generator up-and-running—how’d that miracle transpire? A neighborhood cop, Gonzales, persuaded Poppy to lend his equipment. Ross is grateful.

He smiled slyly. “I’m taking Gonzales out for a drink later to thank him.”

 

“I hear workplace romances can work out occasionally,” Crawford said cheerfully.

 

“It’s just a drink.”

 

“That’s how it all starts. Isn’t that right, Maggie?”

 

She eviscerated him with a look.

 

Ross watched them curiously. “Am I missing out on something?”

 

“Absolutely nothing at all, unless you didn’t realize that Al can be a pain in the ass,” she snapped, then regretted because Ross was very intrigued now.

Oh dear, as her mother had always reminded her, “her rare combination of strawberry-blond hair and pale skin made her a genetic tinderbox and her temper should be managed early.” Enough with the uncomfortable banter. Nolan’s professionalism kicks in. The dead man behind the wheel is Bruce Messane. Hearing that name causes Ross’s face to “crumple.” 

“What, you know him?”

 

“Of him. He the Peppy Pets guy. He formed the company because his cats died from tainted food. Really sad.”

 

“How the hell do you know this?” Crawford asked.

 

“The story is on the back of every bag of dry food. Man, I hope the company doesn’t go under. My cats won’t eat anything else.”

 

“I think it’s too big to fail,” Nolan reassured him.

Nolan quickly finds out that the victim’s company was “about to sell for millions.” Is the money on the table a motive? Within twenty-four hours, Messane’s partner’s wife is kidnapped—and the plot just gets messier. Nolan’s ex-wife states that Messane was a sex addict. A female associate says Nolan was a devotee of violent sex games. Darker still are intimations that an “Angel of Death” may be behind both Messane’s murder and the abduction of his partner’s wife. Were Poppy’s words to her prescient, when he said, “Ángel de la Muerte is here. The angel of death.” Although Gonzales said Poppy’s words weren’t literal, as the case unfolds, Nolan wonders. Poppy also said Por favor cuidadmente (stay safe), a command that’s easier said than done. 

You won’t be able to put City of Secrets down. And there’s time before the fifth Detective Margaret Nolan book drops to read the initial three mysteries in the series.