If you’ve ever read one of P.J. Tracy’s Monkeewrench books, think back for a moment. Those mysteries are so hard to review without giving away the plot. Granted, we also read them for the emotionally scarred characters, but Tracy knows how to write a complex story. She does it again with the first in her new series, Deep Into the Dark. She isn’t dropping the Monkeewrench series, but she’s launching a new one based in Los Angeles.

There are three main characters in Deep Into the Dark. Sam Easton is a veteran of Afghanistan. After two tours of duty and the loss of most of his friends to an IED explosion, he has a half burned and scarred face and suffers from PTSD. He drinks, takes meds, suffers from nightmares. His wife, Yukiko, left him three months earlier. He’s a broken man, a man with a degree in electrical engineering who works as a bar back at the Pearl Club, a cocktail lounge.

Melody Traeger is a bartender at the Pearl Club. She was once a guitarist in a punk rock band, performing as Roxy Codone. She’s taken drugs, lived on the streets. She’s taking college classes, trying to get her life together, but her taste in men isn’t great. She discovers that again, when her latest, Ryan, hits her because he’s jealous.

LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan is an up-and-coming detective in the Homicide Special Section. She’s mentored by her partner, Al Crawford. She’s a perfectionist. She grew up in a transient military family. She’s recently lost a brother in Afghanistan, the only one who supported her choice of career in her military family.

After Ryan hits Melody, she takes refuge at Sam’s house. But, neither of them have an alibi for all the time surrounding Ryan’s murder. His death brings Nolan into their lives. And, Yukiko’s murder after she tells Sam she’s moving to Seattle puts him on the top of the suspect list. But, Nolan isn’t as quick to jump on him as a suspect as her partner is. Al thinks she’s soft on him because of her brother’s death in Afghanistan. She doesn’t see him as a killer, despite his background and his PTSD.

It’s easy to give you the basic introduction to the characters, and the background to the story itself. However, I’ve left out major details for fear of spoiling the story. Like the Monkeewrench books, Deep Into the Dark is more than a police procedural or a mystery. The damaged characters, particularly Sam, are well-developed. And, those three characters will need each other as a killer gathers them into a web.

If you pay attention, the killer becomes obvious late in the book. It doesn’t matter. By that time, I was so hooked on the stories of Sam, Melody and Nolan that I was quickly reading to find if they made it out alive. Sam is the stand-out character for me. He has so many issues that it’s a wonder he can survive. And, that’s what he, and the reader, worry about.

Deep Into the Dark introduces another cast of needy, scarred characters. Monkeewrench fans will be pleased.

P.J. Tracy’s website is pjtracy.com

Deep Into the Dark by P.J. Tracy. Minotaur Books, 2021. ISBN 9781250754943 (hardcover), 352p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .PDF to review for a journal.