D. P. LYLE'S PAGE: The Jake Longly series 2

CULTURED (Jake Longly #6)
D. P. LYLE
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Money, sex, power. Jonathon Lindemann offers it all—just don’t mind the missing girls.

Jake Longly, ex-pro baseball player turned restauranteur, is back where he belongs: relaxing on the beach in front of his restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama. His peace is interrupted, however, when he receives a call from his private investigator father—April Wilkerson has gone missing from Lindemann Farms, the rustic, yet posh, resort built by self-help and financial guru Jonathon Lindemann.

Lindemann, founder of The Lindemann Method (TLM), recruits wealthy people to join his program, charging a hefty entry fee but in return promising huge financial gains and self-enlightenment. Jake’s celebrity status makes him the best person for the case.

When Jake and his girlfriend, Nicole, go on an undercover visit to Lindemann Farms, some suspicious activity makes them wonder about the legitimacy of TLM. Soon, a private conversation with one of the girls hired to work at the resort reveals their unorthodox, and immoral, recruitment methods.

As the layers peel away, darker edges appear. Does Jonathon truly make money for his investors, or is he a scam artist? Is April merely the latest in a series of missing young women? Jake and Nicole need to find her, and soon, before TLM catches wind of their true reasons for visiting the farm.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: My, how Epsteinesque, how very similar to Madoff's financial scams, how end-stage capitalism and awful pedophile-adjacent this entry in the series is.

It's book six; I say start with any of the first three. I started with #3, Sunshine State; it was an easy lift to get the basic idea of the series at that point. By #5, The OC, things are a great deal darker and the humor won't read as well for a newbie.

This entry in the series is darker still, it's much more threatening and anxiety-inducing to be around people disappearing; the smooth, unctuous face of the organization is so offensively slick it's just horrible to read. As always, Jake has snark to spare, unleashing it on these dreadful lying sacks of shit.

As the deeply weird cultists try to smarm Jake and Nicole into believing they're the good guys, the hairpins keep falling. The dynamic duo are pretty experienced by now. They can smell rats from a closed car ten miles from the nest; what that talent gets then in this case is unhappy certainty of unpleasant things. The actual resolution is a gut punch. I does not come from a simple direct relationship to the set-up, though. It takes you through the weeds. It makes you think about people's deepest motivations, more often than not greed prominent among them.

I'd love to tell you I didn't think this actually happens. I can't.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

UNBALANCED (Jake Longly #7)
D. P. LYLE
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jake Longly is never saying yes to his father again

It was a simple task. Five minutes tops.

Ex-pro baseball player Jake Longly and his girlfriend, Nicole, are asked by Jake's father, Ray, a private investigator, to pick up some papers from a realtor for his business. Jake would rather be lying on the beach outside of his Gulf Shores restaurant, but he begrudgingly agrees. It'll only take a few minutes.

But somehow, things are never simple in Ray's world. When Jake and Nicole reach the office, they find it empty—except for the dead body of the realtor lying on the floor, a single gunshot wound to his head. Who could've wanted him dead? The long suspect list and the numerous possible motives make untying the knot difficult.

Working with the police department, Jake, Nicole, Ray, and their friend Pancake dive into the deceivingly simple investigation, which grows more complex by the minute. With millions of dollars at stake, weeding through the realtor's entanglements requires all hands on deck, and yet again, Jake is dragged into the PI business he can't seem to escape.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Anyone who's ever bought property knows the feeling of rage and frustration that accompanies this complex process. Multiply that many times over for large investment properties, and you can relate to someone putting a bullet into this guy's head.

Only he wasn't a bad guy, he was actually a helpful soul...and Jake's dad Ray (the ex-military black ops dude) trusted him enough to work with him...only to have the dude accuse him of embezzlement! So what gives?

Naturally Jake and the ever-perfect Nicole need to find out. Clues build up, there seems to be some kind of offshoring of sizable sums of cash. There also surfaces an entire separate life the guy was leading that he definitely could not afford to have his family know about.

Jake is his usual snarktastic self. It was nice to be back in more salubrious surroundings after the last story! It's not quite by-the-numbers yet, but it's treading familiar paths.

It agrees with me, so I'll keep going until it doesn't anymore.