Face of Greed is the first in author James L’Etoile’s Detective Emily Hunter Mystery series. I’ve read and enjoyed his earlier Nathan Parker and Detective Penley series. Readers who enjoy noir, thrillers, police procedurals, and suspense will enjoy his books. James L’Etoile uses his twenty-nine years as an associate warden in a maximum-security prison, a hostage negotiator, facility captain, and director of California’s state parole system to add verisimilitude to his novels. His style is taut and fast-paced, and he wields red herrings like a knife-thrower.
Emily Hunter, the main character, is competing in the male-dominated world of police detectives while struggling with a mother stricken with dementia. Emily and her partner Javier are called to the scene of a businessman’s murder and have a hunch his grieving widow isn’t really as grief-stricken as she appears to be. Matters become complicated when the mayor of Sacramento gets involved and tries to keep detectives from questioning the widow. As the investigation progresses, the body count rises and the ring of crime spreads centrifugally from the first, involving local politicians, a RICO investigation, and the Aryan Brotherhood.
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Face of Greed (Oceanview Publishing, November 7, 2023) is available through:
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You can read my review of L’Etoile’s Dead Drop here.
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