Sick to Death is Andrew Welsh-Huggins’ eighth mystery featuring private investigator Andy Hayes, but you don’t have to have read any of the previous ones to enjoy this one. Welsh-Huggins provides enough of Hayes’ background to satisfy readers, and he jumps right into the story with a dramatic opening chapter.

Andy Hayes was a star quarterback at Ohio State University, but he made a giant mistake, ended up doing federal time, and washed out when he played for the Cleveland Browns. He’s still putting together his life twenty-some years later, after two failed marriages, and a reputation that was destroyed in Columbus. He’s pleased with the regular hours as a security guard at the Columbus Museum of Art, until the dramatic attempted theft of a painting by George Bellows happens on his watch. He knows he’s not supposed to give chase, but he and a young woman pursue the thieves, and retrieve the artwork. He’s immediately suspended, and then fired for violating the rules. But, he did make a discovery.

The young woman who chased the thieves is an adult daughter he didn’t know he had, Alex Rutledge. His one-night stand with her mother was part of the past he barely remembers, but he likes what he sees of the young woman who has been accepted at the police academy. Alex wants to hire him to find the person who killed her mother five months earlier in a hit-and-skip. Although the police say it’s still an open case, Alex hasn’t seen results.

Alex’s mother, Kate, was a nurse in an ICU unit during the height of COVID while anti-vaxxers were protesting the use of vaccines, and people were dying. As Andy delves into Kate’s death, he begins to wonder if it was not an accident. Did it have something to do with her work?

The latest Andy Hayes mystery takes the detective from hospitals and museums, straight into the path of the FBI. He insists he wasn’t involved in the planning of the theft, but the FBI are suspicious, and someone seems to have it in for him. He has to juggle the investigation into Kate’s death with time spent worrying about the job he no longer has. At the same time, he’s trying to deal with his new adult daughter, and his family’s reaction.

Sick to Death is another excellent detective novel with a protagonist who tries to do the right thing, but always seems to make a mess of it. And, as much as I enjoyed the ending, which was successfully wrapped up, it looks like Andy Hayes is still in trouble. It’s a satisfying series for anyone who enjoys a good PI novel. And, if you know anything about Columbus, Ohio, the series is even better.

Check out Sick to Death. Or, start at the beginning of the series with Fourth Down and Out.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins’ website is https://www.andrewwelshhuggins.com/.

Sick to Death by Andrew Welsh-Huggins. Swallow Press (Ohio University Press), 2024. ISBN 9780804012539 (paperback), 298p.

FTC Full Disclosure – The publicist sent an ARC of the book, with no promise of a positive review.