Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A reporter turned private eye helps a motherless teenager track down her good-for-nothing dad. Times are tough in the newspaper game. So Charlie Shaw isn’t surprised when theSan Francisco Chronicle furloughs him despite his Pulitzer Prize nomination. He’s earned enough street cred walking the crime beat for ex-cop Dwayne Powell to take him on as an investigator at Powell and Associates. Powell starts him out with easy stuff, like snapping shots of wandering wives—assignments tame enough for him to take his six-month-old daughter with him on surveillance. Fortunately, Charlie leaves Callie home when he stakes out Deborah Wellington’s houseboat rendezvous, only to see her much younger paramour beaten to a pulp by a tattooed thug in an Escalade. The complication here is that he’s not the only one watching the attack: 16-year-old Friday Finley is sitting across the road in in her late mom’s 4Runner hoping that Mr. Tats will lead her to Shawn, the father who ghosted her even though he’s the only family she’s got left. New dad Charlie, appalled that a father would leave his daughter in the lurch, not only offers to find Shawn Finley gratis but puts Friday up at his and wife Ryan’s minuscule North Beach home for the duration. Readers who love lost-cause crusaders may admire Charlie’s determination to reunite Friday with Shawn. But others may wonder, after he ends up staring down gun barrels for three nights running, why a devoted dad like Charlie would risk orphaning his own daughter just to facilitate a reunion that one of the participants definitely doesn’t want. Fast-paced fun for readers who don’t care if it all makes sense. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.