JM LeDuc Outdoes Lee Child. With Child’s work with Jack Reacher, you very quickly know what you’re going to get: an interesting mystery with a bad ass loner investigator that doesn’t work well with anyone, much less a team. With the Sinclair O’Malley books, LeDuc proves that he can create equally compelling mysteries with an equally badass investigator – who happens to know what it means to have a chosen family and others you actually care about. While it could be fun to put Sin up against Reacher, and while I’ve loved the entire Reacher series, LeDuc has very easily crafted a character and ongoing mythology that is even better and at least as deserving of praise. Very much recommended.
This review of Painted Beauty by JM LeDuc was originally written on May 1, 2020.