The Darkest Game

by Joseph Schneider

Overview

The past is steeped in blood.

Bad things happen every day. No one knows this better than LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel. He also knows that bad things often go unpunished—all it takes is a glance at his dusty stack of cold cases to see that time is kind to sinners.

A museum curator is found shot point-blank, his home torn apart. It's the sort of random crime destined to fester in an evidence locker. But it's a case tailor-made for the academic turned detective—he can't leave any question unanswered. In pursuit of an untouchable killer, Jarsdel soon uncovers a web of fraud and corruption that leads him to sunny Catalina Island, Hollywood's bygone playground. There, nothing is as it should be: the past is ever-present, and Jarsdel unwittingly finds himself embroiled in a widespread conspiracy. While reckoning with a dark legacy, he'll exhume long-buried secrets of LA's troubled past and with it, deadly consequences.

A searing mystery from critically acclaimed author Joseph Schneider, The Darkest Game is a story about dread, greed, and anguish; how it spreads like rot, and how one detective struggles to keep it at bay.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728245041
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/05/2022
Series:	LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel Mysteries , #3
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Joseph Schneider lives with his wife and two children in California. His professional affiliations include The Magic Castle and the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. One Day You’ll Burn is his debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

02/07/2022

The murder of Dean Burken, found shot to death at home in Laurel Canyon, drives Schneider’s smart if discursive third outing for Det. Tully Jarsdel of the LAPD (after 2021’s What Waits for You). Since Burken, who managed donations at Pasadena’s Huntington Library, was an abrasive, polarizing figure, Jarsdel—a would-be academic turned homicide detective—has lots of suspects, including Ellery Keating, a Huntington board member. After Keating turns up dead on Catalina Island, Jarsdel gets on the trail of a self-styled band of pirates, a massive real estate deal in Newport Beach, and a 19th-century journal from a California settler that could lead to a gold mine. Assured prose and distinctive characters help compensate for the tenuous through line connecting these disparate elements to Burken’s murder and the many lengthy if astute asides on such topics as the museum business, the city’s Persian population (Jarsdel’s father emigrated from Iran), L.A. history (including, notably, the genocide of the region’s indigenous people), and the moral challenge of police work in general. This flawed but deeply intelligent novel will reward thoughtful readers. Agent: Eve Attermann, WME. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Assured prose and distinctive characters…this deeply intelligent novel will reward thoughtful readers." — Publishers Weekly

"Juicy prose redolent of classic noir, with contemporary twists.A cunning killer cuts a murderous swath through the LA art world...Schneider’s choice of backdrop gives him carte blanche to pepper his tale with historic and artistic tidbits about both the collection and the institution itself.

" — Kirkus Reviews

"

 One of the most fascinating detectives to have come along in years, Tully Jarsdel isn’t your typical cop.
" — First Clue

From the Publisher

2022-01-12
A cunning killer cuts a murderous swath through the LA art world.

A brief, brooding prologue, in which the narrator describes a murky murder and muses over the savagery of a Hollywood night, ignites a simmering undercurrent for LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel’s third noir appearance as it rolls slowly into the centerpiece crime. The learned Tully, dubbed the “professor detective” by the LA Times, and Morales, his rough, righteous partner, commiserate over the unjustly light sentence for the killing of a young child before leaving the courtroom to return to Hollywood Station, where they’re soon sent back out to the scene of a brutal murder. Dean Burken, a curator at the Huntington Library and Museum, has been shot several times and, in a telling display of overkill, brutally beaten. The leisurely plot unfolds along traditional lines, with methodical interviews of the handful of “persons of interest” broken up by elaborate banter between the two detectives. The rogues’ gallery of suspects is as quirky and colorful as anything in Hammett or Chandler, and Schneider’s plot, while linear, is full of surprises. Tully’s poignant backstory follows his efforts as caretaker to Baba, his brilliant but declining old father. The murder of a prime suspect at first seems to complicate the case until a witness steps forward to name the killer, only to meet the same fate. Throughout, Morales’ brusque, slangy dialogue plays nicely against Tully’s stylish, erudite speech. Schneider’s choice of backdrop gives him carte blanche to pepper his tale with historic and artistic tidbits about both the collection and the institution itself.

Juicy prose redolent of classic noir, with contemporary twists.

Kirkus Reviews