"RED CAT" by Peter Spiegelman (A+)

Note: A few weeks ago I read a glowing review about Peter Spiegelman's new private eye novel, "Red Cat," in the Wall Street Journal. The review was so intriguing that I just had to read this book, which was just published.

"RED CAT" by Peter Spiegelman ... A+! This is just about the perfect novel, private eye or anything else. Peter Spiegelman's prose is concise and marvelously descriptive. Every word is chosen with extreme care to make the point and to convey a mood or a situation which is described to perfection. Like the authors of "Shadow of the Wind" or "The Thirteenth Tale," I am in awe of his writing prowess. This is one of those very rare books that grabs you from the very first page, heck from the very first paragraph. Try it - You won't be able to put the book down. The chapters are short, and each invites you to read the next. 

Spiegelman weaves a wonderful tale of deception in this noir crime thriller. This is a modern story of a detective who lives in New York City, so it is based in the present with verbiage to match. There is some vulgarity, but it is all so perfectly placed that I found it t be entirely justified for the context and the situation.

John March is a middle aged detective with an earlier career as a policeman who left the force after his wife had died some years before. He is a loner without kids or familial attachments who has had a difficult life since trouble always seems to know where to find him. Tired to the core of his being, he still has his integrity and  his ideals, and the thought of doing some good in the world still holds appeal for him. 

March comes from a family of merchant bankers who have long ago written him off as a low life black sheep who lives a life that they don't even want to think about. None of them will have anything to do with him even though they all also live in New York City. All of this changes when one of his older brothers approaches him with a difficult problem. To John's surprise, since he always thought that his brother had everything, he confesses that he has had a sordid affair with a woman he found on the internet. Though he went by a fake name, somehow she found out everything about him and now she is threatening to go to his wife and to his other brother at the merchant baking firm, a possibility that may bring ruin to their hundred-year-old family business.

Just as March begins his investigation, the woman turns up dead in the East River, and all of the evidence points towards his brother...