Prisoner of Memory

When the son of a Russian émigré is found murdered in Los Angeles, reporter Eve Diamond finds herself searching for clues in her own family's past, a situation that is complicated by a young man who claims to be her long-lost cousin, on the run from the Russian mafia. By the author of Last Lullaby. 75,000 first printing.

Eve Diamond, having investigated Southern California's Asian and Latino communities, tackles the Russians in Hamilton's entertaining, well-researched fifth thriller to feature the ambitious L.A. Times reporter (after 2005's Savage Gardens). Eve is following reports of a mountain lion in Griffith Park when she discovers the bullet-ridden body of Dennis Lukin, the teenage son of recent Russian émigrés. That night, Eve is visited by Mischa Tsipin, an illegal Russian immigrant running from gangsters to whom he owes money and claiming to be a cousin of Eve's (her mother was Russian). At considerable personal risk, the indefatigable Eve sorts through false identities and changing alliances, confronting old and new Russian émigrés and their mafia as well as her own family history. Lending support are FBI agent Thomas Clavendish, an intractable cold warrior, and her reporter colleague, Josh Brandywine. As usual, Hamilton richly evokes seething, polyglot L.A., but the reader's suspension of disbelief may sag by the final shootout under the weight of too many coincidences and subplots. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond investigates the execution-style murder of a Russian American teenager in the fifth--and most personal--mystery in Hamilton's critically acclaimed series. Soon after Dennis Lukin's corpse is found in Griffith Park, Diamond finds herself entangled in a case that will reunite her with the Russian heritage she has long tried to forget. Eve's world becomes infinitely more complicated when Mischa, a disheveled man claiming to be her long-lost cousin, shows up at her doorstep, on the run from the Russian Mob. She allows him to sleep on her back porch, a reluctant act of kindness that soon endangers her life. Veteran journalist Hamilton has a few too many subplots in this tribute to her own Eastern European roots (her roster of artistic relatives includes members of the Mariinsky Theatre and Kirov Ballet). There are echoes of Raymond Chandler in her take on the metropolis of L.A.--an eclectic, moody (and surprisingly rainy) place. Fans of the series will be interested in the autobiographical connections here. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved