He Wasn’t There Again Today

Book excerpt: The witty, queer accidental detective of the Epitome Apartments is back. While helping to solve a community murder, she also needs to convince police that she didn’t revenge-kill the man who took everything from her The nameless amateur sleuth of The Adventures of Isabel and What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? has often said that death is too good for Lockwood Chiles — who is in prison for killing her beloved partner, Nathan, and her close friend Pris — and makes no secret that she hates the man who massacred her shot at happiness. So when Chiles ends up dead in his cell, it’s no wonder she becomes a prime suspect. Meanwhile, an aggressive band of men in military-adjacent garb turn a string of assaults against nameless’s unhoused neighbors into full-bore murder right behind the Epitome Apartments, and she rashly promises to help bring them to law. As if that’s not enough, unscrupulous parties are scheming to strip her of her inheritance, money she and Nathan had intended would address the city’s lack of harm-reduction services and low-income housing. Now it is nameless’s mission to clear her name and to hold her tattered community together, all while she’s coming apart herself.