Kalorama Shakedown

Do you like your mysteries firmly tongue-in-cheek?  Then Robert Bruce Stewart's latest Harry Reese mystery Kalorama Shakedown (#337) is for you.  Harry is a New York City based fraud investigator for insurance companies and this time his work brings him to Washington, D.C..

Fraudulent insurance claims, lobbyists working social events, real estate schemes, journalists in hot pursuit of a new source of free drinks.  If any of this seems familiar, it just goes to prove that things really haven't changed much in Washington circles since 1901, when this colorful story is set.  Except that the literary sensation everyone is talking about here is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, instead of Harry Potter.

Harry's new wife, Emmie, has insisted on accompanying him to D.C., ostensibly to catch up with an old school friend.  It's not Harry's first encounter with Elizabeth and he strongly suspects that Emmie, Elizabeth or possibly both of them are up to something, and he isn't necessarily sure he wants to find out just what that could be.  If I were in his shoes, I'm not sure I'd want to know, either!  Add in Elizabeth's employer, the Countess, and you have a delightfully duplicitous trio of women playing off each other in the course of the investigation.  And they're on the positive side of Harry's ledger!Things turn deadly when bodies turn up in two different cities.  Can Harry make the connection between them in time to earn his commission and avoid jail?

This is the second book in a row that I've read that evokes the silver screen for me.  In this case, it's my favorite screen couple, Nick and Nora Charles, played so ably by William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series.  The only thing you would need to change is their costumes to suit the 1901 fashions.  That's exactly how I pictured Harry Reese and his wife, Emmie, with their bantering and misdirection, and Harry's perennial amusement and bemusement with her.  I can't wait to go back and catch up on their earlier adventures, as well as new ones as they come along.  What fun!