One of the stores in the Platform I work in sells Andrew Welsh-Huggin's Fourth Down and Out, and after reading the summary on the back, I decided to check it out of the library to see if it was worth buying for mom.
What I found was, even if Mom would likely not enjoy it, I certainly did.
Our story opens on Private Investigator Andy Hayes getting the stuffing beat out of him over a laptop in the back of his van, with the assailant also pointing out he lost a bunch of money on a game thanks to Andy.
We flash back to the start of this adventure, as Andy gets hired at the Cup O' Joe in German Village to find out who's blackmailing his client with a video of said client cheating on his wife with an 18 year old. Which leads to the boyfriend of the 18 year old, which in turn leads to his parents in New Albany.
As the book progresses, we find out several people have reasons to want the laptop, from the lady who's been writing English assignments for Buckeye football players to keep eligible; the fixer, who hired her to write said assignments; the dad of the blackmailer, who has some shady financial deals on the laptop; and Andy's assailant, who was paid to retrieve it and got a bullet to the chest and a swim in the Grandview Quarry for his trouble.
On top of this, we have a secondary investigation into whether or not a professor's wife is having an affair, which ends up being a red herring for the real mystery here.
Towards the end, we finally find out why Andy's relationship with the fixer is so strained, and get a really good look at (in this case fictional) dirty dealings within the athletics department at Ohio State. (I realize this situation is fictional, I said that in the last sentence. However, given what's come to light since 2014 when this was published...)
I enjoyed it, even if some of the biggest fiction in here was finding parking in German Village less than a mile away from where you were trying to go. I doubt non residents of Ohio would find much of interest here, although you never know.
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