A Beautiful Voice

Lane’s prose is fine and unpretentious. It flirts with wonder and sensuality. Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

IT WAS MEANT TO BE A QUIET ASSIGNMENT–HOW DID IT GO SO WRONG?

Jake Travis is ordered to smuggle ashore an accountant who can help place a notorious drug lord behind bars. Stash him in a cottage. Arouse no suspicion. But the man unexpectedly arrives with his wife and three young children. Within days, the children are missing. Jake suspects what he had been told about his passengers was not entirely true. He is labeled a failure and is dismissed from the case.

Seeking redemption, Jake confronts Stephen Cole, the neighbor across from the cottage. He senses that Cole, a ghostless soul, is hiding something. At a museum gala, Jake corners the man suspected of laundering money for the drug lord, and his assistant, Tina Welch. Jake and Welch form an instant disliking for each other, yet their paths continue to cross.

His troubles compound as Kathleen, his fiance, becomes increasingly distant. Jake’s desperate quest to find the children, Kathleen’s unrest, and Cole’s haunting past blend into a page-turning mystery that showcases Lane’s singular style of humor, suspense and unforgettable characters.

A superbly satisfying novel, a witty and intellectual version of noir detective fiction that Mr. Lane has made distinctly his own. Florida Weekly