Last Dance

August 31, 2020
Fleishman’s impressive sequel to 2019’s My Detective puts Det. Sam Carver of the LAPD on the case of Katrina Ivanovna, a famous Russian ballerina who was poised to reclaim her former glory on stage before being found dead of an apparent overdose in her apartment. Carver suspects foul play, but when the ballerina’s body is stolen from the morgue, the cause of death may never be determined. Was it an accidental overdose, or suicide, or did someone kill her? Carver gets on the trail of mysterious Russians who were threatening her and wanted her now missing diaries, in which she might have revealed family connections to KGB agents and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Fleishman nicely evokes Los Angeles, “a metropolis of spirits and distant lights, a cool, dark place of lies that spin along the coast and blow across the desert.” A hard-boiled, world-weary hero in the classic tradition of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, Carver will also appeal to fans of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. Fleishman is on his way to becoming a master of contemporary L.A. noir. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.

October 1, 2020
The Russian ballerina is dead in her L.A. loft, "pale and light as shaved ice." So begins Fleishman's second novel featuring LAPD Detective Sam Carver. Whether readers find this a striking turn of phrase, or just peculiar, will be the key to their reaction to this ambitious novel. The inflated language?he showers "to baptize myself for a new day"?ornaments Carver's attempts to learn more about the dead woman. Only an autopsy will reveal how she died, and that won't happen because her body is stolen. Carver's investigation offers flashes of noir-movie intrigue. A mysterious man is observed leaving the death scene and joining a refined woman with "silver-black hair." Carver approaches the core of the mystery when he tracks film producer Mickey Orlov. He's Russian, he was likely involved in fraud in the 2016 election that gave us "our spoiled orange King-baby," and he has much to say about the dancer's death. Even readers not enamored of the language?"the indelible lie of beauty"?will find plenty to enjoy in the engaging plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

August 15, 2020
Fleishman introduces a seen-it-all LA cop to a few things he's never seen. Whatever killed 42-year-old ballerina Katrina Ivanovna didn't leave a mark on her. And since her body vanishes from the morgue before an autopsy, it's anybody's guess what killed her. Nor are the facts about her pre-decease much more definite. It's clear that she considered her starring role in choreographer Andreas Stein's new production of Giselle her last chance for a comeback, clear that she worried that her body was no longer equal to the demands of the role, and clear that she popped pills and accepted new sex partners with abandon. But what links might her Kremlin-connected mother have forged to Mickey (ne Mikhail) Orlov, the Hollywood producer whose shadowy past, perhaps including KGB membership, may have involved meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? And why would anyone want to steal the body Katrina felt had betrayed her? The detective on the case, the LAPD's Sam Carver, talks a great game, alternating between laconic dialogue and appealingly quotable reflections as he fights off his memories of Dylan Cross, the woman who escaped after taking him prisoner and confessing that she'd killed two men who'd raped her. But neither Carver nor his creator ever weaves together all the busy lines of the episodic plot, and by the end, he can only conclude: "The case isn't solved, but the guilty are dead." The best review comes early, in the form of a presidential tweet: "LAPD can't stop illegals, loses ballerina. SAD."

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