The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin: A John Darvelle Mystery

Finalist for the 2017 Shamus Award

Michael Craven, author of The Detective & The Pipe Girl, delivers another mystery—for fans of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen—featuring private detective John Darvelle, who must crack a cold case that pulls him into the high-stakes world of exotic fish collectors.

Private Detective John Darvelle is back—drinking cheap beer, playing ping-pong and sharing his philosophy on everything from work/life balance to restaurants with bad air-conditioning. (He doesn’t believe in the former, he despises the latter.)

Darvelle is hired to find the killer of Keaton Fuller, a well-born Los Angeles man gunned down in his own driveway. The cops couldn’t solve the case, in part because everyone who came in contact with Keaton despised him. Translation: Anybody could have done it. Following a trail of the dead man’s betrayals, Darvelle finds himself in the exotic, high-stakes world of rare tropical fish. The fish are certainly valuable enough to kill for, but is there something more menacing going on?

As Darvelle relentlessly drives toward the truth, a showdown awaits that is at once riveting, visceral, and very, very dangerous. It’s a case only he could solve—just as long as he’s willing to put his life on the line.