Like a pair of Kabuki warriors or comic-book antagonists, DCI William Warwick and archcriminal Miles Faulkner return for yet another round of cat-and-mouse plotting and counterplotting. Luxuriating with his wife, Beth, keeper of pictures at London's Fitzmolean Museum, aboard the SS Alden, a liner bound for New York, William is disconcerted when Fraser Buchanan, the chairman of the Pilgrim Line that owns the ship, dies during a meal. And he's deeply chagrined when his attempts to prove that the patriarch was poisoned are short-circuited by a burial at sea he's powerless to prevent. Fear not: This strangely extended prologue's only connection to the main event is that when the Aldendocks in New York, William skips the wedding he and Beth have been invited to and hastens back to England alone because he's gotten word that Faulkner, reported dead at the end of Turn a Blind Eye(2021), may be enjoying a new life as Capt. Ralph Neville, who's courting Christina Faulkner, his widow, so that he won't have to let go of the art collection he left to her. Faulkner, who's good at these things, slips out of the dragnet Scotland Yard has gathered around him before they can snap it shut, but the ongoing standoff between him and William is more dutiful than engaging. Luckily, longtime undercover DI Ross Hogan, whom retiring Cmdr. Hawksby is grooming as William's second, develops an altogether more personal reason for going after Faulkner and, at long last, begins to litter the path he blazes to his quarry with the bodies of his agents. The mixture as before, for those who want another round. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, of the London Metropolitan Police, has a lot on his plate. A lawyer appears to be perpetrating a fraud, claiming to be acting in the interests of a dead man; the newly-formed Unsolved Cases Unit is tracking the whereabouts of a handful of alleged killers; and there's skullduggery behind the scenes at a luxury cruise line. This is the fourth Warwick mystery (after Turn a Blind Eye, 2021), and again William has risen in rank (Archer's intent from the beginning of the series was to follow Warwick as his career progressed); he's now the youngest DCI on the force, and clearly destined for even bigger things. As usual, Archer deftly balances the mystery and family elements--William's relationship with his father, a noted criminal barrister, has had its ups and downs--and the various criminal subplots all tie together very nicely. Another winner in this consistently excellent series.

Set circa 1988, bestseller Archer's overstuffed fourth police procedural featuring Det. Chief Insp. William Warwick (after Turn a Blind Eye) finds William and his wife on a cruise ship heading for New York. When Fraser Buchanan, the chairman of the Pilgrim Line, dies on board, the ship's captain asks William to investigate. Back in England, William returns to his role as head of the London Metropolitan Police's newly formed Unsolved Murder Unit. The team is assigned five cases, in which William's superior believes the perpetrators got away with murder. Each investigation is farfetched and riddled with coincidences. Meanwhile, William is intent on tracking down his nemesis, millionaire art collector and thief Miles Faulkner. Faulkner has recently escaped capture by the police, for which William rightly feels responsible after making a poor decision during a car chase. The resolution of the cruise ship case, which reads much like a quaint golden age mystery, disappoints. Smooth prose makes up only in part for a lack of depth and a hero prone to acting in irritatingly stupid ways. This one's for diehard Archer fans only. (Oct.)