Sanders’s sizzling third case for Nate Ross (after Dead-Bang Fall) sees the L.A. gumshoe investigating an apparent suicide on behalf of the victim’s two children. In the summer of 1939, travel agent Cecil J. Whitcanack is found dead behind the wheel of a Buick in a garage with the engine running. At first glance, his death appears to be in keeping with a documented uptick in suicides across L.A., but Cecil’s children, Alan and Alanna, insist their father would never have harmed himself. That Cecil’s lucrative life insurance policy would be voided if his death were ruled a suicide is mere coincidence, the siblings insist. Alan and Alanna hire Ross to look into the case, and he quickly finds—to his surprise—that they may be onto something: the steering wheel of the Buick had no fingerprints on it, suggesting someone may have tampered with the scene. But if the evidence is inconclusive, why do the cops seem so eager to close the case? Sanders keeps his foot on the gas as Ross unravels a citywide conspiracy related to Cecil’s death, with plenty of double-crossing and noirish turns of phrase along the way (when he first meets them, the Whitcanack siblings give Ross “a sensation like ants were doing a conga line up my backbone”). Ace Atkins fans should give this series a look. (Apr.)