Coming March 1, 2020

Killing Influence

PI Earl Town returns in Killing Influence.

Two vivacious social media stars die just days apart. Both worked for Boom Productions, a self-described “arms dealer in the platform wars”—they create online content that generates billions of clicks. The timing of the seemingly unsuspicious deaths worries an aging mafia don whose granddaughter is a standout among Boom’s talent stable, so he hires PI Earl Town to investigate and Earl soon finds himself looking for clues among self-absorbed social media starlets, their fanatical parents, young social media entrepreneurs, rock stars, and gangsters.

The “wily sleuth” (Kirkus Reviews) finds a potential ally in a hard-nosed police detective assigned to the deaths. But it sure would help if Earl could remember just what he and she got up to on their first meeting at a boozy New Year’s Eve bash a few months prior. Then an old lawyer friend ropes Earl into looking for a dancer who disappeared while on the verge of a large payout. Working two cases is a problem when Earl’s clients are paying for his full attention, but issues magnify when the granddaughter is put in harm’s way and the don assigns his wet-behind-the-ears grandson to shadow Earl’s every move. The kid seems a simple-minded doofus at first, but Earl gradually comes to realize the heir didn’t fall far from the sociopathic family tree. Keeping his associate from killing witnesses, or being killed by them, adds to Earl’s burden as he uncovers a blackmail plot and races to keep a killer from escaping justice.

A gripping mystery, Killing Influence is also a story of power and persuasion, loyalty and betrayal, and, of course, la familia.