Sex, Lies, and DVDs

“Adultery is a private investigator’s stock in trade,” writes James R. Winter in his January Magazine review--posted earlier today--of Peter Spiegelman’s latest novel, Red Cat. “Cheating spouses and blackmail problems keep P.I.s in business. So it’s no surprise that, after more than a month without work, John March’s latest case ... is one of adultery. What’s surprising is that the client is his elder brother, David. Even more surprising: David is the adulterer.”

After that lead-in, Winter maps out in fascinating detail the dark rabbit hole down which New Yorker March must navigate if he’s to protect his control-freak sibling from an Internet lover of abundant personae--a woman who may or may not have in mind blackmailing David, but has definitely disappeared, leaving him to face a murder charge. Don’t get the wrong idea here, though: Spiegelman’s third novel (after Black Maps and Death’s Little Helpers) isn’t wholly plot-driven. As Winter explains, the author “strips the layers off even his most minor characters and reveals them to be something more than they appear at first to be. Initial impressions here serve only to misdirect the reader.”

You can read January’s whole critique of Red Cat here.