Steve Womack is a Nashville-based writer. This novel is the first in a series featuring reporter turned private-eye Harry Denton. Half of the fun of this novel for me was reading about familiar places around Nashville that I see or hear about daily. It’s fun to sort of map out the routes or imagine the areas of town that Harry is exploring in uncovering the crime. But, this is a murder-mystery and it must also be judged on those merits. And I have to admit, I enjoyed it for that as well. I’ve been reading some of the novels in the Hard Case Crime series and I think this one would fit in well there—a hard-boiled detective, a femme fatale, all those elements are here. And the mystery itself hangs together well enough. It’s certainly not as strong as one by Minette Walters or Elizabeth George (my gold standard for modern mystery writing), but it’s one that keeps the pages turning and did have me guesssing to the end. The real draw is Denton, who tells the story from the first-person. Denton’s voice is compelling, interesting and keeps the pages turning even as red herrings and blind aleys are explored.