THE DARKEST GAME, cerebral LA Noir, third in a series

THE DARKEST GAME
JOSEPH SCHNEIDER
Poisoned Pen Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$7.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Bad things happen every day. No one knows this better than LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel. He also knows that bad things often go unpunished—all it takes is a glance at his dusty stack of cold cases to see that time is kind to sinners.

A museum curator is found shot point-blank, his home torn apart. It's the sort of random crime destined to fester in an evidence locker. But it's a case tailor-made for the academic turned detective—he can't leave any question unanswered. In pursuit of an untouchable killer, Jarsdel soon uncovers a web of fraud and corruption that leads him to sunny Catalina Island, Hollywood's bygone playground. There, nothing is as it should be: the past is ever-present, and Jarsdel unwittingly finds himself embroiled in a widespread conspiracy. While reckoning with a dark legacy, he'll exhume long-buried secrets of LA's troubled past and with it, deadly consequences.

A searing mystery from critically acclaimed author Joseph Schneider, The Darkest Game is a story about dread, greed, and anguish; how it spreads like rot, and how one detective struggles to keep it at bay.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There are a lot of things wrong with starting a series with Book Three. I am usually very twitchy about this topic. I would, after having read this book, have felt much better had I had the history between the two leads. As it was, in medias res with them as a bickering old couple (not in the sexual sense), I was able to enjoy the story for itself. I still wish I'd had their history to hand in my brain's filing system, though.

The mystery itself got announced in a fairly usual way: Someone not obviously murder-worthy is found in a trashed home...there's just enough off about the situation to make the Odd Badge-wearing Couple poke more into the dead guy...and thus a very thorough policing job, one that proceeds without undue haste, uncovers some very rotten doins in both past and present that merit a lot of trouble being heaped on people more accustomed to doing the heaping. And, to be sure, they try their goddamnedest to do that heaping again. Tully, having "disappointed" his professor parents by *shudder* becoming a cop in LAPD, isn't likely to let a little thing like Official Disapproval stand in his way of a successful solution. Morales? He's along for the ride, an always-complaining partner-in-crime (solving) with more to gain by staying with the insufferable Tully than moving on. Plus he's not exactly easygoing hisownself.

Tully's abandoned life of being another Professor Doctor Jarsdel has, it is to be noted, equipped him with far more information than the typical cop. It didn't give him his powers of observation, however, and those are the key characteristics that get Tully into enough hot water that he gets quite viciously attacked...twice...and, the second time, he's almost killed from it.

Not only do both he and Morales survive, the second attack...and the murder of their chief suspect...coalesce into a picture of the actual murderer and the real motive for the entire sad affair. It was very, very well-handled, I thoroughly enjoyed Tully's snobby references to things others do not catch or care about, and still thought, "why hasn't friendly fire taken this oh-so-superior guy out?" Because he may grate on the ordinary people around him, but he gets the job done where most of them are honest enough to admit that they might very well not have done.

If you liked watching Endeavour on the TV, or liked the Gervase Fen series or the Nero Wolfe series, these stories will likely scratch the itch well. He's not as arch as Fen or as august as Morse, but Jarsdel will definitely be well-placed on your radar.

I spent most of my life in Texas, but was born in California to a native Californian, a man from Venice Beach. We visited Catalina Island many times, and I've seen the Huntington Museum that forms part of this mystery...but the main thing to know about the settings is that they are there to evoke moods and emotions in the reader. Yes, you'll recognize the places if you've been there or live there, but essentially these aren't used to make it impossible to "get" the full extent of the mystery the way some London- or Paris-set stories are. Like having read the first two entries in the series, it would add something to know what's what, but it isn't in any way *crucial* for you to have done so.