Picking right up where LONE WOLF ended, Linwood Barclay gives us another exploit in Zack Walker’s life in STONE RAIN. It seems newspaper reporter Zack is just a magnet for trouble and, boy, is there a ton of trouble in this one.

Zack’s dominatrix friend Trixie needs his help with a tabloid reporter, which gets the ball rolling into a real thrill ride. Trixie wants no publicity at all, including any photos of her appearing in the paper, but her past is about to catch up with her in a big way, involving her former boss, a biker who owned a strip club. Let’s just say she didn’t leave on good terms.

A second storyline involves corrupt health inspectors and the restaurants that pay them off, making things complicated for Zack. And when he goes to confront Trixie and tell her that he really can’t help, he discovers a gruesome sight in her basement. And that’s when the book starts firing on all cylinders.

With STONE RAIN, Barclay weaves a taut little tale of suspense, with some truly nail-biting passages throughout, thus outdoing the events of his previous novel. Barclay has limited his pop-culture references in this one, but makes up for it with the colorful characters, from the Russian family that runs a less-than-healthy restaurant to the former bikers who could be described best as homages to the leads from OF MICE AND MEN, but with one even dumber and the other with a nasty habit of picking his nose.

If this was all Zack had to deal with, he’d be okay, but his boss wants his hide, his wife feels like they need to take a break, and, of course, the cops believe Zack is having an affair with Trixie. With complexity upon complexity, STONE RAIN grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the end. –Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• LONE WOLF by Linwood Barclay