mysterious company with no apparent explanation. Clay discovers the money represented various fees and interest payments on a piece of property the woman bought years earlier based on lofty (and false) promises in brochures. He soon learns that dozens of others had been fleeced in this same bogus investment scheme, most losing their property when they couldn’t keep up the various payments. The different land parcels were located in Swann’s Flat, a town in the rugged mountainous California region north of San Francisco. Clay, posing as a potential investor under an assumed name, goes there to investigate.

He discovers that Swann’s Flat is the ultimate in tight-knit communities, a handful of residents living in luxurious estates among dozens of worthless parcels of land too rugged to develop. The town has no cell or internet service and is accessible only over a one-lane dirt road through treacherous mountains. (Those mountain passes afford many opportunities for unwary travelers to jump, fall, or get pushed over a steep cliff.) Clay gradually learns how the scam was created and operated over the years. Some people may find the description of financial skullduggery tedious, but I found the material fascinating. The people behind the scheme perfected a way to seemingly keep their operations legal while taking millions from unsuspecting purchasers.

At this point, about one-third of the way through The Lost Coast,” I expected Clay to figure out some way to bring fraud charges or lawsuits against the bad guys. I was wrong. Instead, the story pivots to a search for a young man who disappeared in those same mountains a year earlier. Clay suspects the man had spent time in Swann’s Flat before he disappeared, so he also looks into that case. It wouldn’t be fair to readers to reveal much more of the story other than to say that the young man’s disappearance was linked to the suspicious death of a member of the town’s founding Swann family and another mysterious disappearance in the same area some 15 years earlier.

Clay Edison is an interesting main character, unlike traditional crime fiction PIs in many ways. He’s not a bachelor loner. Instead, Clay has a wife who constantly worries about him and insists that he give her hourly updates (something that proves difficult in the massive dead zone surrounding Swann’s Flat). Clay also has two very young children whose “exploits” at home are sources of pride for him. I’m sure his history as a coroner also gives him a unique skill set, although those skills aren’t used here. (Other than vague references to past cases, The Lost Coast reads well as a standalone introduction to this series.) He also gains a “partner” in the book’s second half, Regina Klein, a PI investigating the missing young man earlier. She poses as Edison’s wife when he returns to Swann’s Flat for the book’s concluding section. Regina is colorful enough to support a sequel or spinoff if the Kellermans take this series in another direction.

In some ways, The Lost Coast reminded me of Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer novels. It has a distinctly California feel to it, although Swann’s Flat is far from the Los Angeles environs where most of Archer’s cases took place. Clay Edison is also a knight errant, pursuing the case even when there doesn’t seem to be any more money in it for him. (The authors explain he received some healthy off-the-books compensation from an earlier case.) “The Lost Coast” also has some crisp, apt phrasing, such as the authors’ description of the missing man’s former home: “In Berkeley, people called that living green. In Fresno, it was called being poor.” However, the primary similarity between The Lost Coast and MacDonald’s work is the rich cast of suspects, victims, and witnesses Edison discovers in his investigation. Some are long gone but still come to life through other characters’ recollections and Clay’s research (The internet is the 21st-century PI’s best friend, once he has service available.). The end result is something that, like the Archer novels, resembles classical Greek tragedy in some ways.

Unfortunately, the narrative in The Lost Coast falls apart somewhat toward the end. The authors rely on two lengthy information dumps from different characters to explain what happened in previous years. At one point, the authors switch from a first- to third-person point of view as they devote the book’s longest chapter to explaining in momentum-choking detail what one character knew and did. Ultimately, the book has some extensive gunplay to permanently resolve matters. I’m not opposed to action scenes in a mostly cerebral mystery before that, but the violence here seems a gratuitous hook for hardboiled crime fans.

Although I was disappointed in the way the authors wrapped up the case (and the book), I enjoyed The Lost Coast a great deal. I’ve read several of Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware books, and he brings the same attention to character and plotting here. I don’t know how the authors divided the writing process, but the book (except for the one chapter I mentioned before) reads like a seamless whole rather than a collection of disparate sections. The authors also take potentially dry financial criminality and make it as intriguing as a complex bank heist. I’m now interested in reading how Clay Edison solved his earlier mysteries. The Lost Coast is an excellent find for mystery fans.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.