Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Copperman and Cohen's uneven fifth Asperger's mystery (after 2017's The Question of the Absentee Father) finds Samuel Hoenig, owner of New Jersey's Questions Answered agency, and his associate, Janet Washburn, on opposite sides of their latest client's question. Virginia Fontaine claims that her husband, Brett, is in love with the ghost of his college girlfriend, Melanie Mason, who died three years earlier. Janet, who believes ghosts exist, is troubled by Samuel's unwillingness to consider the possibility-and his entrenched position threatens their developing romance. Then, during Janet's first day trailing Brett, he's murdered. Meanwhile, Samuel's father, Reuben, who has returned after a 27-year absence, wants to develop a relationship with his reluctant son. The first-person narration provides insights into the protagonist's logical, literal thought processes and his perplexity at emotional nuances and social subtleties. Series fans will appreciate the further development of Samuel's character, but readers should be prepared for unlikely coincidences, unresolved inconsistencies, and continuity errors. Agent: Josh Getzler, Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A client asks a researcher to find out whether her husband is cheating on her with his late college girlfriend, who might seem to be above suspicion but isn't after all.As proprietor of Questions Answered, a service dedicated to answering queries from the mundane to the esoteric, Samuel Hoenig (The Question of the Absentee Father, 2017, etc.) makes it clear to potential clients that his business doesn't include getting the goods on cheating spouses. But Virginia Fontaine doesn't exactly want the goods on her husband, Brett. Since Melanie Mason, the putative object of Brett's affections, died three years ago, Ginny's query has a more metaphysical edge: Can a person cheat on a living spouse with a deceased mistress? And there's a further complication. Even though Samuel's firmly persuaded that ghosts don't exist, his assistant, Janet Washburna person he regards with esteem bordering on affectionwonders if maybe they do. Dealing with the vagaries of human relationships is hard enough for individuals like Samuel on the autism spectrum. Dealing with love and lust between humans and specters pushes his nascent understanding of the ways of the neurotypical to its limit.Readers will delight in watching Copperman's literal-minded hero grapple not only with unpredictable and nuanced human thinking, but with logic from beyond the grave. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
