BRIGHT FUTURES

It's not so much a question of who wanted a local Sarasota naysayer dead, but which of the many people who hated him actually killed him. In BRIGHT FUTURES, Stuart Kaminsky's latest novel featuring the kindhearted non-detective Lew Fonesca (he has no license), the hapless investigator tries to prove that the person in jail for the killing is the wrong man. Narrator Michael McConnohie has Fonesca's easygoing manner down pat, and he also brings to life the other members of Fonesca's crew, including an aging ex-detective, a sort-of girlfriend, and a strange Chinese man who has attached himself to Fonesca to make up for having killed his wife in a car accident. BRIGHT FUTURE is a wonderful excursion into a strange world that ends all too soon. M.S. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2009]