Bestseller DeMille's ponderous eighth John Corey novel (after 2015's Radiant Angel) drags Corey--former NYPD detective, former contract agent with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, former member of the Diplomatic Surveillance Group, and former adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice--out of his enforced retirement. One of Corey's former lovers, Det. Beth Penrose of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad, urges him to take a job with a private investigation firm on Long Island called Security Solutions. After much dithering, Corey finally succumbs to Beth's entreaties and winds up in a treacherous maze of vice, graft, and blackmail, and on the trail of a serial killer. Fortunately, the dirty cops and lowlifes employed by the detective agency are as old-school as Corey, who ends up looking for incriminating evidence among Security Solutions' recent videocassettes and paper ledgers, which are stored in a basement secured by a padlock. Armed with his trusty Glock, a crowbar, and unlimited cockiness, Corey manfully succeeds in fighting crime. This is for die-hard fans only. Agents: Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Oct.)

Book 8 in DeMille's John Corey series unlocks a complex murder mystery set on Fire Island. The jokes start right away: "You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning." Corey is a former NYPD homicide detective, and he's currently "NYU--New York Unemployed." He has plenty of enemies, like the Russian SVR intelligence service, which wants him dead--but waiting for that plotline to develop is like waiting for Godot. Ex-lover Det. Beth Penrose conveys an offer that he become a consultant to Security Solutions Investigative Services, "a very tacky private investigative agency" located on Suffolk County farmland with a giant hedge maze as a neighbor. Though Beth doesn't say so, the plan seems to be that Corey will be her confidential informant, getting inside Security Solutions to learn if it has any connection to the killings of nine young Long Island women. Security Solutions is a fun-loving outfit, with after-hours parties like Thirsty Thursdays. You've got your booze, your broads with names like Tiffany, your cops both present and ex, your politicians, a disbarred lawyer--fertile and dangerous grounds for Corey's snooping. Like the maze, the plot has "twisting paths with lots of dead ends," but "you have to wake up real early to pull one over on John Corey." But before the guns start blasting, he fires his "pocket rocket" into a willing woman, a suspect named Amy. "Emission accomplished," he later muses. Ah yes, Corey has a million sex jokes that would have teenagers TikTok-ing "ROFLMAO." Are there nude beaches in Bermuda? He'd love to check out the Bermuda triangles. Is tonight "poker night? Or poke her night?" And why do strippers have names like Tiffany and not Best Buy? Anyway, Corey hasn't settled down with a woman: "Ospreys mate for life," he states. "But are they happy?" Oh yes, again with the plot: There's a tough, unsolved murder case with interlocking crimes and suspects that ends in a fiery finish. A well-done crime yarn but not for the straight-laced or those prone to fantods. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

John Corey isn't exactly enjoying retirement. It wasn't his choice, in the first place. The federal government, for whom he most recently worked (he's also been a NYPD cop), doesn't want him anymore. And in the second place, Corey's the kind of guy who needs to be moving, working, doing something useful. So when someone with whom he used to be very close asks him to dig into some unsolved murders, it doesn't take him too long to say yes. But finding a suspected serial killer turns out to be more complicated than even Corey, an expert at complicated investigations, could have imagined. DeMille is one of those writers who rarely has a misfire. The Corey novels (this is the eighth) have been uniformly strong, mostly due to his lead character, a deeply complex, compelling, and unpredictable fellow. A complete success.