Shoot the moon A novel

Barry's third novel is a sequel to Double Exposure (2022), her nascent series featuring musician-turned-PI Rainey Hall. A descendant of Hollywood royalty and the offspring of artists, Rainey has privileged access to the underground L.A. entertainment scene. In the first installment, Rainey tried to discover her mother's whereabouts; now her firm is hired to locate a young artist whose disappearance may be connected to that of Rainey's childhood friend. When the man Rainey has long suspected in her friend's case crops up in this new investigation, she hopes that she may finally achieve retribution while solving both mysteries. Leveraging her familial connections, Rainey unearths a wider conspiracy involving exploitation, drugs, and blackmail that she fears is being perpetrated by influential people within her elite social circle. Fast paced, with good character development and an eclectic cast of likable characters, Shoot the Moon reintroduces an intriguing new sleuth capable of exposing the darker side of fame. Fans of tough, irreverent female detectives like Kinsey Millhone and V. I. Warshawski will appreciate the sardonic charms of Rainey Hall.

Barry's undercooked sequel to Double Exposure finds Hollywood PI Rainey Hall starting to feel like she's chasing ghosts when a missing persons case throws her back into her difficult past. Rainey realizes she may be entering dangerous waters when she volunteers to search for 17-year-old beauty Chloe Delmonico, whose case shares disturbing similarities with the unsolved disappearance of Rainey's childhood best friend nine years earlier. As Rainey begins to probe potential links between the cases, including a rock star turned political power broker and a well-connected drug dealer with a taste for underage girls, pushback from L.A.'s most influential circles suggests she's struck a nerve--and that the stakes may be even higher than she thought. Barry is too talented a writer for Rainey's plunge into greed, graft, and murder not to have its moments--especially the heart-pounding, cinematic climax set during an orgy at a haunted hotel. Unfortunately, many of the twists seem arbitrary, and several characters, including Rainey's agency partner, Lola, are unconvincing. Lacking both the daring plot and sizzling queer tension of its predecessor, this disappoints. Agent: Annie Bomke, Annie Bomke Literary. (Feb.)

In the second Rainey Hall mystery (following Double Exposure), Barry continues to explore the glamorous and gloomy extremes of California, with a story that ventures through Los Angeles, Laurel Canyon, and Joshua Tree in search of answers to a current mystery that connects events from Rainey's past. The story weaves between the summer that Rainey spent near LA, when she and her best friends Alice and Spencer broke into empty houses and engaged in small criminal acts that ultimately spiraled into a big theft. A few days later, Alice went missing--and nine years after that, Rainey takes on a case that brings her back into the same mysterious society steeped in drugs, art, and influence. Some of the narration feels a little heavy-handed (e.g., using a radio broadcaster to fill in gaps in information for readers), and the novel could benefit from some compression. Still, the story is well-paced and features a psychologically complex cast of characters. It's familiar yet satisfying, with trenchant observations about celebrity culture, childhood relationships, addiction, and family secrets. VERDICT Barry captures her protagonist's history of trauma, loss, and addiction in ways that help this somewhat formulaic mystery ring true.--Emily Bowles