The Devil’s Own Game by Annie Hogsett

The Devil’s Own Game by Annie Hogsett 2019 published by Poison Pen Press

[image error]Hogsett is a local Northeast Ohio author and a member of Sisters in Crime, a must for mystery writers. This is the third in a series about Tom Bennington who won $550 million in the lottery trying to teach a boy that gambling doesn’t pay. But it does. Allie Harper is his partner as amateur sleuths who founded the T&A Detective Agency. Yes, they aren’t the brightest when naming a company.

The story is told from Allie’s point of view. She uses one-word sentences and has an inner personality named Lee Ann who is a slutty teen pickpocket and a reminder of her youth. Allie is down to earth, knows her shortcomings, and is in love with Tom, who is the quiet intellectual who is good with his hands.

The money turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing as they lose former jobs and attempts are made on their lives in the previous novels. This one proves that life hasn’t improved by moving to a cottage by Lake Erie.

This mystery begins at the Cleveland Art Museum, a local landmark but familiar to anyone who visits Cleveland. Tom, who is blind, bumps into another blind man, Kip Wade, and they exchange heated words. In less than an hour he will be dead from a sniper’s bullet while sitting along the lagoon. It’s a message to Tom and Allie from a crazy man out of their past. The bodies begin to pile up. The T&A takes on a case during the wait for the sniper to attack again. They solve it, but someone ends up dead, thanks to the sniper. Hogsett adds an interesting twist about the killer and keeps us guessing on what will happen next.

Hogsett paces her murder mystery with plenty of characters, clues, and humor. Cleveland is the perfect setting without boring the reader with too many details. Subplots bring in old friends and an ex-husband to flesh out the story and provide backstory. She builds to a nail-biting climax when the killer tracks Tom and Allie to the basement of the museum.

If you like a mystery, this is an author to try.