The Lost Coast (Clay Edison Series #5)

by Jonathan Kellerman, Jesse Kellerman Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The author of Crime Scene takes us to the wilds of California in the fifth installment of the Clay Edison series that will leave your fingertips covered in paper cuts from how quickly you’ll be turning the pages…

The riveting new Clay Edison thriller from the bestselling, acclaimed father-son duo who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King)

Cut loose from his former life at the coroner's office, Clay Edison has set up shop as a private investigator. It's steady, safe work. Until it isn't.

The trouble begins when a young man, tasked with managing his grandmother's estate, hires Clay to examine some minor financial discrepancies. What starts off as a case of simple fraud rapidly explodes into a web of deception, an elaborate con game stretching back decades and involving countless victims.

All the evidence points to a tiny town on California's rugged, remote Lost Coast. Good luck getting there, though. And Clay's reward for surviving the journey is a trigger-happy welcoming committee, ready to guard their secrets with lethal force.

Navigating this landscape of savage waves and savage lies brings Clay into collision with a host of other players: a grieving mother, an enigmatic teenager, a reclusive military veteran, a foul-mouthed PI pursuing her own agenda. And the price of truth will turn out to be higher-and deadlier-than Clay could have imagined.

From the minds of Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman comes a heart-stopping tale of deception and redemption-bursting with action, suspense, and unforgettable characters.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/12/2024

In father/son duo Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman’s entertaining latest case for PI Clay Edison (after The Burning), the former coroner heads to rural California to unwind inconsistencies in a dead woman’s estate. A San Francisco man named Chris Villareal asks Clay for a meeting at his recently deceased grandmother’s home on the outskirts of the city. While going through the late woman’s papers, Chris has discovered a series of mysterious monthly payments that added up to more than $50,000, and he wants Clay to determine what the money was for. Clay’s search takes him to the tiny, heavily forested Northern Californian hamlet of Swann’s Flat—population 13—where it turns out Chris’s grandmother owned property. Once there, Clay is faced with hostile, gun-toting locals, and he stumbles into the case of a missing young man that’s being pursued by an unfriendly fellow PI. Eventually, everything connects in a smartly orchestrated conspiracy. The Kellermans skillfully connect the plot’s many dots without skimping on character development—Clay’s rapport with his wife, Amy, who worries about the dangers of his profession, rings especially true. Series fans and newcomers alike will enjoy themselves. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

Praise for the Clay Edison series

“As for the keen sense of drama, it must be a genetic trait. . . . Unlike most crime writers (not to mention their readers), who revel in the bloody aftermath of a violent encounter, the Kellermans show compassion for the survivors, including conscientious officials like Edison.”—The New York Times Book Review

“As always, the Kellermans guarantee that readers will turn pages rapidly to enjoy the complex characters and intricate plot turns. . . . A winner for mystery readers.”—Library Journal

“Edison is an interesting protagonist, a good man for whom finding the truth is more important than anything else, including his own safety. He’s gentle and strong, compassionate and ruthless, methodical and impulsive.”—Booklist



Praise for Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman

“Jonathan Kellerman’s psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Jesse] Kellerman has a gift for creating compelling characters as well as crafting an ingenious plot that grabs the reader and refuses to let go.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Library Journal

07/12/2024

In the father-son Kellerman team's follow-up to The Burning, Clay Edison is now a licensed private investigator, giving him more freedom to operate than he had as a coroner's investigator. When a former client refers Chris Villareal, who needs assistance with matters concerning his grandmother's estate, Clay thinks that it should be an easy case. Chris has found some strange financial transactions in her papers. It seems that she has purchased land in Swan's Flat, a remote rural area on California's Lost Coast. When Clay goes to investigate, he finds that even the trip over roads that are nearly nonexistent is perilous. Once there, he has to pay a small fortune for a ratty room in a rundown inn. The few locals are less than welcoming, spying on him, shooting at him, and vandalizing his car. His wife and family, anxious since there is no cellphone reception, want him to come home, but Clay continues investigating. He discovers a web of fraud and deception that goes back several generations and works hard to help Chris while staying alive. VERDICT The Kellermans excel at creating menacing environments and truly creepy characters, spinning a tale that will keep readers turning pages all night.—Barbara M. Bibel

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-05-31
Father and son Kellerman collaborate on the fifth Clay Edison PI adventure.

On Northern California’s Lost Coast, the executor of a woman’s estate needs help sorting out some curious monthly payments the deceased had been making. Having no luck with one private investigator, she asks Oakland ex-cop turned PI Clay Edison. Soon the original PI, Regina Klein, bawls him out in bleep-worthy terms for horning in on her case, but they form a temporary alliance to solve a complicated plot that’s rife with peril. It looks like someone is running a real estate scam on an isolated location on the Lost Coast called Swann’s Flat. A narrow and dangerous road twists and turns to the destination, and Clay sideswipes a teenage cyclist on a hairpin turn. The girl, Shasta, doesn’t blame Clay for her minor injuries, and she becomes a key in a story that’s peppered with vivid descriptions: Clay sees “the Pacific Coast baring its teeth. It was a crude, ax-hewn land, bunched like the front end of a head-on collision.” And Regina is one of an abundance of well-drawn, entertaining characters: She has a gift for acting and easily switches from garbage-mouth to sweetness and light as the situation calls for. As a pretend married couple, they go to Swann’s Flat and let a B.S. artist named Beau try to sell them property in this “private residential community”: “Find your heart on the Lost Coast!” Clay checks in frequently with his real wife, Amy, who’s at home with their two kids. He even consults with her on how much risk he should take; they are a loving family apparently devoid of flaws. Meanwhile, a one-hit-wonder novelist can’t be found, and another young man is missing. Years earlier, Shasta’s dad had fallen into oblivion off a cliff so high you couldn’t hear the thump at the bottom. Maybe it was an accident or maybe not. And maybe Pop won’t be the cliff’s last victim. Crisp, witty dialogue zips this well-paced story along so that when violence happens, it comes as a shock.

Kellerman fans will love this one.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160125503
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/06/2024
Series:	Clay Edison Series , #5
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	347,410

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

I’d been off the force and out on my own for a year when I got a call from Peter Franchette.

We met in downtown Oakland, at the same sushi restaurant where I’d last left him on a rainy afternoon, sitting across from a sister he’d never met. I’d tracked her down for him—a bit of extracurricular activity that was part of why I was off the force and out on my own.

The summer sun was harsh as he stepped in from the street. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Not at all. You shaved your beard.”

“And you grew one.”

I’d grown my hair out, too. The extra length masked a scar running from temple to nape.

“My wife likes me better this way,” I said.

We took a booth, put in our order, made conversation. Peter told me he’d kept in touch with his sister, closely at first. Then less so.

“She has her life, I have mine.”

I nodded.

“And you?” he asked. “Charlotte must be—what. Four and a half?”

“Good memory. We have a son now, too. Myles.” I showed him my phone.

“What a bruiser. Am I wrong, or does he look like you?”

“Yeah, he’s a clone.”

“Cute. So how’s life as a private citizen treating you?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Thanks for meeting on short notice.”

“No problem,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“This kid I mentor, Chris Villareal—super-­bright guy. His company does interesting stuff with AI and traffic grids . . . Anyhow. He showed up to a recent meeting looking pretty distraught. His grandmother passed and named him executor of her estate. Without warning him.”

“Always a fun surprise.”

“From what I gather, there’s not much in terms of dollars. It’s just disorganized, and he’s run across some things that don’t feel right.”

“How so?”

“You’d be better off hearing it from him.”

“Has he spoken to an estate attorney?”

“I set him up with my person. She thinks it’s not worth the trouble, Chris should drop it.”

“Sounds like good advice.”

“I think it’s a matter of principle. He and his grandma were very close. The lawyer was the one who suggested a private investigator. She had a name but I thought of you.”

“Appreciate it.”

The server approached with our food.

I split a pair of chopsticks and sanded them together. “Have him call me.”

“Great.”

Toward the end of the meal, he said, “You know, you never cashed my check.”

The check in question was made out to my daughter for $250,000—a reward for my efforts. At the time I was still a county employee, sticking to the rules. Most of them.

Crazy money for the job. Peter’s venture capital success had earned him more than I could imagine, but mega-­rich isn’t necessarily mega-­generous.

“I tried to,” I said. “The bank wouldn’t accept it. They said it was too old.”

“When?”

“Last year.”

“What’d you wait so long for?”

“I didn’t want to get fired.”

He shook his head. “What I get for using paper . . . Well, look,” he said, digging out his phone, “at some point I decided you weren’t going to deposit it. So I made an end run.”

He began tapping at the screen. For a moment I thought he might zap me the money electronically, a quarter of a million dollars in a quadrillionth of a second.

Instead he turned the screen around as if to show off pictures of his own kids.

I saw a banking app, with one account, labeled charlotte edison—529 plan.

“Technically it’s in my name. I didn’t know her Social. Happy to transfer it whenever you’d like. You can see for yourself, it’s done pretty well.”

The balance was $321,238.77.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I think I should remind you,” I said, “I have a son now, too.”

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