That Left Turn at Albuquerque

January 20, 2020
In this lackluster crime novel from Edgar finalist Phillips (The Ice Harvest), financially strapped Southern California attorney Douglas Rigby has stolen thousands from the account of his sole client, aged former TV producer Glenn Haskill, and is desperate to find some way of replacing the funds before his theft is detected. His initial plan—to profit from a drug deal with a gang known as the Devil’s Hammers—fails after his less-than-sharp go-between hands over the product without getting the agreed-upon cash in return. That screwup leads to violence and only places Rigby further behind the eight ball, even as his real estate broker wife, who knows what’s going on and has made few recent sales, fears that losing their home will make her a pariah in her field. Rigby comes up with another scheme, centered on art fraud that would also victimize Haskill, but the details don’t generate much excitement. Nothing invites any empathy for Rigby, whose multiple sins include marital infidelity. Phillips has been more successful in the past in making readers engage with repellent leads.

March 1, 2020
Phillips (The Ice Harvest, 2000) is the real deal?a noir writer who never wimps out in the third act. His characters don't care if you don't like them, and their downward spirals are invariably both excruciating and comical. So it is with California lawyer Douglas Rigby, whose personal left turn at Albuquerque (yes, the title comes from Bugs Bunny, who blamed his troubles on making that one wrong turn) involves an ill-advised drug deal, using money "borrowed" from his only client, a dying former TV producer. The deal goes hilariously bad, prompting Rigby to devise an art fraud in league with his client's caregiver. Swirling around that caper, though, are a gaggle of other characters, each flawed in outlandish ways, including Rigby's real-estate-saleswoman wife, Paula; a golf pro with whom she cavorts in the empty houses she's trying to sell; and the TV guy's bumbling nephew. All of these ne'er-do-wells have a wisp of self-awareness, but it doesn't keep them from taking those wrong left turns. Noir and black comedy have always been kissin' cousins, but here they're locked in a torrid embrace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)