Innocent Monster (Moe Prager mystery #6)

by Reed Farrel Coleman

Available for: Kindle | NOOK | Apple | Sony

“This sixth Moe Prager novel is pretty much note-perfect. Coleman’s take on the art world as a den of iniquity is priceless…”
—Booklist (starred review)

DESCRIPTION

Seven years have passed since the brutal murder that tore Moe Prager’s family apart and six years since Moe brushed the dust off his PI license. But when his estranged daughter Sarah comes to him with a request he cannot refuse, Moe takes a deep breath and plunges back into the icy, opaque waters of secrets and lies. Sashi Bluntstone, an eleven-year-old art prodigy and daughter of Sarah’s dearest childhood friend, has been abducted. Three weeks into the investigation, the cops have gotten nowhere and the parents have gotten desperate. Desperation, the door through which Moe Prager always enters, swings wide open. Just as in Sashi’s paintings, there’s much more to the case than one can see at a glance.

With the help of an ex-football star, Moe stumbles around the fringes of the New York art scene, trying to get a handle on where the art stops and the commerce begins. Much to Moe’s surprise and disgust, he discovers that Sashi is, on the one hand, revered as a cash cow and, on the other, reviled as a fraud and a joke. Suspects abound beyond the usual predators and pedophiles, for it is those closest to Sashi in life that have the most to gain from her death. Cruel ironies lurk around every corner, beneath every painting, and behind every door. Almost nothing is what it seems.

Innocent Monster is a book of children and parents, of lives lost and found. It is a variation on the theme of good and evil, each often wearing the other’s disguise. Beware the innocent monster for it need not hide itself and it lives closely among us: sometimes as close as the mirror.

PRAISE

“This sixth Moe Prager novel is pretty much note-perfect. Coleman’s take on the art world as a den of iniquity is priceless, as is Moe himself—intelligent, street smart, and tough, especially for a sixtysomething. He’s also sophisticated, despite seeing himself as a “poor schmuck from Brooklyn.” He’s a mensch, and his bone-deep world weariness and mordant sense of humor should enthrall lovers of old-school, tough-talking, loner private eyes (think Loren D. Estleman’s Amos Walker).”
—Booklist (starred review)

“In Shamus-winner Coleman’s darkly impressive sixth Moe Prager mystery (after 2008’s Empty Ever After), the retired Brooklyn PI takes on a baffling missing person case only because his estranged daughter, Sarah, begs him to help…His past as a cop, his guilt over his wife’s murder, and his current career as a wine merchant make Prager a complex character well suited to handle a complex mystery.”
—Publishers Weekly

Innocent Monster (Moe Prager mystery #6)