Graveland: A Novel
Investigative journalist Jimmy Gilroy, who first appeared in Bloodland (2011), has a small role in Glynn’s third crime story, but it’s Gilroy’s hard-bitten colleague, Ellen Dorsey, who’s in the limelight here. The action starts with the murder of a jogger in Central Park. Not just “any guy,” the victim worked for one of the city’s megabucks Wall Street investment firms. Dorsey fleetingly wonders if there’s a story in the murder, but, just when she’s about to go on to another article, a second financial guru—a well-known hedge-fund manger—is killed. Close on the heels of his death is an attack on a member of a hugely successful ­private-equity group. Are terrorists wiping out Wall Street elites? Dorsey is hooked, especially after she meets Frank Bishop, an out-of-work architect caught in the stranglehold of the current economic downturn. What began as a rather routine crime story takes a redeeming left turn midway, but this undisguised attack on the financial district still lacks the punch of Glynn’s previous books and will appeal most to patient readers whose investment portfolios are safe and secure. --Stephanie Zvirin