Atticus Priest is back. His “hold his nose” job for a wealthy contractor who needs really good dirt on his wife for revenge and for their divorce proceedings is central to the plot. Frank Green’s wive Alice made his bribery schemes involving the local council public and caused his arrest. He needs to go after her big time and, since he has deep pockets, Atticus does not refrain. Alice is an influencer whose schtick is “wild swimming” and lots of product endorsement in her many videos. Apparently wild swimming is swimming in natural waters with currents or waves. She tapes herself in quiet locations along the river. Frank wants Atticus to show that Alice is a fraud to the core except for the getting wet out in nature and that all of her healthy living advice is bogus.
In a corollary story, we find a group of men and women in perhaps their early thirties who were friends from a very young age. We know something they are doing must be suspect and that someone named Chris was harmed. We know that Samantha (Sam) is concerned that Tom, an alcoholic who has started rehab, might feel remorse and give away their shady doings. They have Connor take Tom to his place where they just hand out together while Connor trys to suss out whether Tom is safe or not.
This turns into parallel missing persons cases, with Alice disappearing from her filming location, her car left undisturbed and Tom’s parents filing a missing persons report. Dawson is great at developing his plots and his characters and All the Devils are Here does not disappoint! Every scene beautifully develops the feel of the place, the river where Alice films, the pub where he first meets with Frank, the out of the way place where Connor has Tom and a horse lot Sam owns that is command central for the high school friends. One can almost imagine walking and driving all the routes. As usual, Bandit the dog is a pleasant presence.
Atticus and his girlfriend, Mac, his former supervisor when he was with the police are going strong and the local constabulary takes over the missing person cases that become more and more suspicious as the novel twists and turns us to the end. Every clue is there. There are some rather violent and gory scenes, necessary to the plot and to the level of evil involved. Just a heads up that it is not a cozy but a police procedural/private eye/thriller genre where Mark Dawson rises up in his field. The narration of the audio book was excellent. All in all, a job well done.
They Called me Bookworm 