Generally speaking, I shy away from short stories. But once in a while, especially if it's coming from a favorite author, I relent. Recent releases by Dean Koontz and Jonathan Kellerman come to mind - short stories they wrote as lead-ins to upcoming books. In fact, I've even read a shorty by this author, who's also on my list of favorites -- albeit one co-written with M.J. Rose for the anthology FaceOff a few years back (an outstanding compilation that I highly recommended, BTW). So when I got a chance to read an advance copy of this one, I didn't hesitate.
I'm actually glad it's very short, because I really didn't want to put it down and could finish it in one sitting. As it begins, Detective D.D. Warren is at home with her crime scene analyst husband Alex and their son Jack after a day that began with a very much alive man coming to the station to insist that really, he's very much dead. Believing him to be a bit deranged, the cops send him home. That belief turns upside down a couple of hours later, though, when they get a phone call: It seems the man was on the right track but spoke a bit too soon. Now, his claim is official - and the knife in his back is a dead giveaway that someone else helped him prove his point.
Sections of the book shift back and forth from the after-work discussion to the police station and the beginning of D.D.'s day, from announcement of the man's death to the progress and conclusion of the investigation. Much of that takes place inside the man's ostentatious home, wherein live the man's widow and several exceptionally well-paid servants - all of whom are suspects. Because everything happens in such short order I can't say more without giving away too much, but it's all cleverly written with overtones of the game of Clue: We know it was a knife, but was it the chef in the kitchen? The doctor in the bedroom? The wife in the sitting room? In the end, I'm glad I didn't put money on my chosen culprit; had I done that, I'd be eating ramen noodles for the rest of the week.
After the case wraps up, readers can take a peek at the author's next D.D. Warren book. Me? Thanks, but I prefer to wait for the whole thing and go in cold turkey - but it's there for inquiring minds who want to know ahead of time.
The Guy Who Died Twice by Lisa Gardner (Penquin Group, January 2019); page length not listed.
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