Peter Duluth, New York’s youngest theatrical producer, is drinking his success and reputation down the drain. Realizing he needs to dry out and come down to Earth, he checks into a posh private sanitarium for “the cure.”

After a few weeks of drying out Dr. Lenz, the director, approaches Duluth asking for help on a problem. Lenz feels there may be an unwanted patient, who is causing disruption that is leading to tension among the patients and the possibility of them relapsing. There have been reports of voices being heard and other disturbing incidents.

Duluth takes on the task with the idea of it being a good distraction while he finishes out his cure. It isn’t just the patients who interest Duluth, there are also members of the staff.

When murder rears its ugly head, Duluth really has some sharp turns to navigate as he sorts out who is really who. ( )

El productos de Broadway Peter Duluth buscó consuelo en una botella después de la muerte de su esposa. Ahora, dos años después y desesperado por secarse, ingresa a un sanatorio con la esperanza de romper su dependencia de la bebida, pero la institución no le ofrece el descanso y la relajación que esperaba. Sucesos extraños y malévolos plagan el hospital y entre otros eventos inexplicables, Peter escucha su propia voz con una ominosa advertencia: habrá asesinato.

“There will be murder.” At any time, this is an alarming sentence to hear in the dead of night. But Peter Duluth is in a sanitarium, where he’s attempting to stop using alcohol entirely, and hearing voices is particularly alarming in this context. It means that when Duluth launches an amateur investigation (at the behest of the sanitarium’s director), it’s especially hard for him to sort out what’s true and what’s false.

For an amateur-sleuth mystery, this was pretty good. Duluth had immediate stakes in solving the puzzle, had good self-awareness of his amateur status, and wasn’t tempted to take too many unnecessary risks. I liked his narrative voice and was invested in the outcome. And there was just enough sprinkling of Duluth’s life as a Broadway producer that it ticked my “good theatre mystery” box. It got a little bit weird at the end, but it wasn’t entirely impossible, so I will give it that. I’m not sure whether I’d read any more novels in the Peter Duluth series, but this one is worth a gamble if you like American detective fiction. ( )