The first chapter is great. Addison McKellar, a feisty, rich married woman, goes looking for her husband, Dean. He’s done a disappearing act. Again. The last time he did this, he returned full of remorse, and with promises that it wouldn’t happen again. But this time is different. He’s been gone a week with no contact at all, and Addison is now on the war path. Having gotten very little help from her husband’s secretary, she visits his office, and this is where her whole life with Dean is exposed to be a huge lie.

From this point on we’re to meet quite a cast of characters, most of them wacky and extreme, but all of them are interesting. Best of all, we are introduced to a private investigator called Porter Hayes, a man in his late 60s. He’s the sort of guy you’d expect the character John Shaft (from the novel Shaft by Ernest Tidyman, and played in the subsequent films by Richard Roundtree) to have matured into. He’s magnetic, and, for me, his aura dominates the rest of the book. The problem, though, is that the challenging multi-person point of view structure employed by Atkins rather detracted from my enjoyment of this otherwise intriguing tale.

There are quite a few characters here, in what is quite a complex story. Also, to accommodate the chosen structure, the timeframe is a little jumpy, which provides an additional challenge. There’s a good plot here, and the story is populated with intriguing characters. The dialogue is great, too, and often hilarious. But it’s all told in a way that I found testing. It felt like a four star story told in a two star way. So, overall it’s a three star offering for me.

This is a story set in Memphis about a missing person which turns into something more sinister.
When Addison’s husband disappears for a week and his offices no longer seem to exist, her ailing father recommends private detective Porter Hayes, an old friend, who just might be able to help her.
As Porter searches for Dean Mckellar, he learns that the man is not who he seems and he has been living a double life mixing with some very unsavoury people. Soon Addison’s and her children's lives are in extreme danger and she needs all her wits to stay alive.
There were a lot of characters in this book and the story is told from several viewpoints. I liked the sections narrated by Addison and Porter but found the parts about the criminals slightly less interesting as it was difficult to work out who they were and what was going on. There were many people who seemed quite happy to be involved in unscrupulous activities but their activities were not particularly captivating.
However I really enjoyed reading about Porter’s investigation and Addison’s story with her gradual realisation that her life has been built on a pack of lies.
The book moved at a fairly fast pace although there were some long sections about the nefarious activities which I skim read.
All in all a solid 3 star from me.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.