Review: The Shotgun Approach

  (This post is available in audio format here on Youtube.)

You've got to keep an eye on William Martell. He's a master of misdirection. He lays out the evidence fairly but sneakily in each of his novelettes (novellas? long short stories?).

The Shotgun Approach concerns a formerly hit music duo with more than a passing resemblance to Hall and Oates, except the frontman has had his blonde head blown off with a shotgun and his partner is the prime suspect, along with the victim's ex-wife and his former producer, who all, by odd coincidence, are checked into the same VIP floor of the same luxury hotel on the night of the murder.

Hosting the proceedings are a burnt-out San Francisco police detective and her latest partner, who's been assigned the unenviable task of making sure she doesn't kill anyone. No one has had any luck in that department so far.

All the suspects loved the singer, and all had reason to kill him, consisting of three parts money and one part jealousy. Interrogations proceed well past dinner and a midnight snack, as the two detectives play Bad Cop and Worse Cop, setting traps that their quarry keeps slipping through.

I'm still dying for a full-length novel from Martell, who's a screenwriter, more accustomed to tell a story in broad strokes rather than getting down into the trenches. But his bite-size Crime Time thrillers always make for a one-sitting satisfactory whodunit. This one is no exception. Don't wait for the movie.

The Shotgun Approach is available now from Amazon.