Gumshoe on the Loose

I would like to thank Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing for an advance copy of Gumshoe on the Loose, the third novel to feature Reno based P.I. Mortimer Angel.

In a complicated set of circumstances Mort (never Mortimer) discovers the dead body of bad boy rapper Jo-X in a putative client's garage. When asked to clear the client's name by her father, an old acquaintance of Mort, he decides on a road trip to Vegas where Jo-X lived and soon finds himself out of his depth in more adventures.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gumshoe on the Loose which is a fun read with clever plot. Told in the first person by IRS Agent turned PI Mort Angel it is his wisecracking and easy going personality which drives the novel although the slightly insane plot helps. The Gumshoe in the title is aspirational for Mort as he makes frequent references to Hammer and Spade but he is no hard boiled detective, more of a big softy, although, on the upside, he has become a babe magnet since leaving the IRS.

The novel is a kind of pastiche on the old hard boiled detective genre where the detective finds his way out of trouble, solves the case before the police and gets the dame as our hero stumbles into situations and flies by the seat of his pants until the solution finds him. It's funny, warm and endearing without being cosy.

Gumshoe on the Loose is an interesting, fun read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

Not just funny--hilariuos. Unputdownable. Left me wanting to read everything by Rob Leininger.

I came late for the party. John Leininger’s Gumshoe on the Loose (Oceanview Publishing, 2018) is the third in the Mortimer (Mort, dammit!) Angel series, but my first read. Leininger has managed to drag, infuse and sometimes confuse three – or more – generations of private eye personae into one protagonist, and has updated the expected cast of characters to the 21st century.
Mort and his boss Ma conjure up memories of A A Fair’s Bertha Cool and Donald Lam series written before Earl Stanley Gardner ‘fessed up about his real name, to include remote motels, Nevada and Caifornia desert and beautiful women. Mort himself trends more to Travis Magee, in that he never seems to have a client or sidekick that isn’t a world-stage knockout. Possibly as an olive branch to potential female readers, at least Mort’s women appear to have more brains than he, albeit well hidden by traditional female charms. I mean, how many times does a woman answer her motel room door clad only in bikini panties in real life?
The teen idol rapper Jon-X managed to get himself both shot and left for ransom. Figure that one out. Mort first stumbles, then relies on blind luck while untangling the snarl of gorgeous women, police detectives, sleazy journalist and the like. His Mike Shayne, Mike Hammer personality laced with shades as far back as Johnny Dollar don’t come into play often, but the long-term PI reader will spot them when they do.
Do the good guys get the girls? Do the bad guys get caught? Who of the two million or so parents would kill a sleaze-ball rapper like Jon-X to keep his or her daughter from running away to become his groupie? Alas, no one knows the answer except John Leininger, and he is apparently delighted to keep the secret well after most of the pages are on the left side of the book’s spine.
Over the top? Yes. Bawdy and rollicking? Oh, yes. Politically correct? Would you really expect that of a hard-boiled PI? Of course not. The girls are too pretty and willing, the desert is too sunny and hot, and the action is not always contained within the plot.
A fun read, and a good one.