ONE GOOD DEED

5 stars out of 5

Any time a book by one of my all-time favorite authors is released, it goes on my must-read list. And when it brings the promise of a new character, well, I immediately move it to the top; after all, it could be the start of something good.

Honestly, I don't know if the intent here is to launch a series featuring World War II veteran and newly released prison inmate Aloysius Archer; I do know that if it is, count me in. Set in 1949, it's certainly different - with words like "gumshoe," "grub" and "dames" sprinkled liberally throughout. Men wore hats (Archer, a fedora), ladies wore gloves and Veronica Lake peekaboo hairdos and everybody smoked - usually unfiltered Lucky Strikes or Pall Malls. The only thing halfway resembling technology came in the form of a Dictaphone machine (if you need to ask what that is, you're just a young whippersnapper).

Deposited by bus in prison-assigned Poca City, Archer will be on parole for three years and report to officer Ernestine Crabtree. Chancing a stop in a local bar - off limits to parolees - he meets a flaunt-it-all high-roller who's there showing off his female arm candy. They begin to talk, and the guy hires Archer, who must find gainful employment as a condition of parole, to collect a debt (specifically, a Cadillac) he's owed by another local businessman. But when Archer goes to meet that man, he learns there's more to the story; that arm candy, it seems, is the daughter of the guy who hired him. What's more, that Caddy's going nowhere unless the daughter agrees to come back home to daddy - and she ain't budging.

That leaves Archer somewhere between a rock and a hard place, and matters get even more complicated when said daughter decides she's sweet on Archer. If that weren't enough, everywhere he turns, the rather stuffy Miss Crabtree keeps her eye on his comings and goings - as does another ex-con Archer knows to be nastier than most. When one of the characters bites the dust right under Archer's nose, the law comes calling - tapping Archer, of course, as the primary suspect.

Returning to jail understandably isn't on Archer's agenda, though, and the only way he can prove his innocence is to find the motive and unearth the real killer. That's exactly what he sets out to do, finding an unlikely ally in the form of one of the detectives on the case - who tells Archer he's got the makings to become a pretty good gumshoe (which I'm taking as a clue that we'll see him again).

And that's where my part of the story ends; the rest is a very entertaining, finely tuned story that had me riveted right up to the end. Yes, it's a bit of a departure from the author's usual fare and the time setting is reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett book. But I absolutely loved it, and I think other readers will agree. Highly recommended - oh, and more, please? 

One Good Deed by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, July 2019); 433 pp.