Puzzle for Two, by Josh Lanyon

[Ulysses]

Puzzle for Two
By Josh Lanyon
Published by JustJoshin, 2023
Four stars

There is a certain familiarity about Zach Davies and Flint Carey—they call to mind the bookstore owner and the police captain I like so much in the Pirate’s Cove series. But Zach and Flint are a bit edgier, and this isn’t a cozy mystery. Like Davies and Flint, this story is edgier, as embodied by the truly creepy character of Alton Beacher. Zach is maybe too sweet to be a private detective. Then, again, he’s not too trusting, just lacking in self-confidence. Flint is the perfect foil for him. Flint is the tough guy that Zach hasn’t seen as anything other than a business rival, until things get very dark and Zach suddenly sees Flint in a different light.

Two broken relationships are at the psychological core of this book—Zach’s ex Ben haunts the page like an unresolved bad dream; and Alton Beacher’s possibly-not-sane wife, Zora is quite literally ghostlike. It’s nicely arranged so that the reader can understand how it takes two to kill a relationship. Again, this isn’t the cozy version of this kind of dynamic you see in Pirate’s Cove; Both Ben and Zora take on sinister qualities that provide two distinctly different kinds of shivers as the plot unrolls.

I finished this book definitely feeling it should be the first of a series, although that is not made at all clear by Lanyon. I’d love to see more of Flint and Zach—not to mention Brooke, Zach’s “little” sister, who has untapped potential as a character just begging for more page time.