As luck would have it (after the harrowing events in 2023’s GUMSHOE ON THE RUN), Mortimer Angel, a PI in perpetual training, has “become wary about crossing paths with stray women.”

Mort is doing boring routine investigative work when he enters Pauline’s Diner in Nowhere, Nevada, and pegs a diminutive girl at the bar to be a sixth grader. What could possibly go wrong? A rhetorical question, of course. While channel surfing, the gal pauses at an item about Nevada’s Senator Anthony Burne being missing for three weeks, and again at the mention of a $1.48 billion Powerball ticket purchased almost a year ago that has not been claimed yet.

"A millipede number of shoes drop as Mort, Ma, Harper and Vale navigate labyrinthine leads in this kickass mystery with a message."

A biker roughneck enters the diner and rummages through the girl’s coat and purse, pulling out a scrap of paper. He physically abuses “Lizzy,” and Mort whips him with his judo third-degree black belt. She and Mort skedaddle, now with three biker ruffians chasing after them and using the truck as a firing range target. The only way someone driving a four-cylinder Nissan can outrun hooligans on motorcycles that can top 130 MPH is to steal a single-engine aircraft. With no pilot in sight, Angel Airlines is formed, and Mort pilots the two-seat “kite.” Paraphrasing Bette Davis’ character, “It’s going to be a bumpy flight.”

Low on both fuel and knowledge about aircraft, Mort performs a semi-controlled crash landing in a remote landscape, which injures his passenger’s ankle. Unable to walk, Mort piggybacks her. He learns that “Lizzy” is 34-year-old Liz Carelli, who is 88 pounds and almost five feet tall. Now divorced, her married name was Burne, the same as a certain senator: “That’s another famous missing person found dead by Mortimer Angel, PI extraordinaire.” This is karmic vengeance for Mort’s years as an IRS thug.

As the body count climbs, the chances of identifying the mastermind behind this murderous mélange rival that of winning the lottery: “We’ve got legwork to do, and decisions to make, all without enough information to make them.” A millipede number of shoes drop as Mort, Ma, Harper and Vale navigate labyrinthine leads in this kickass mystery with a message.

Author’s note: “The Gumshoe novels are humorous, fun, and deadly. They are also rated R (Risqué). Never X and most certainly not XXX or explicitly descriptive, but they are risqué.”

And they’re bawdily entertaining. Check out Rob Leininger’s biography at this link and interviews with him here.