The Bird Boys

Starred review from May 20, 2019
Set in Beaumont, Tex., in 1973, Sandlin’s excellent sequel to 2015’s The Do-Right continues the adventures of Delpha Wade, who’s on parole after serving 14 years for voluntary manslaughter, and fledgling PI Tom Phelan, who has hired Delpha as his secretary. Into Tom’s office walks 75-year-old Xavier Bell, who asks the detective to locate his long-lost brother. Tom and Delpha soon suspect that Bell is not who he claims to be, and they realize that one of the two brothers is a killer. Meanwhile, Tom takes a case involving a wife who’s afraid her husband is doing something illegal and wants Tom to stop him before he gets caught. Sandlin does a superb job of evoking pre-Google days when detectives had to know their way around the library and be ready to talk to scores of people in the hope of finding valid information. But what makes this crime novel soar is the humanity and humility of its main characters. It is by turns exciting, tender, suspenseful, observant, and gently funny. Readers will eagerly await the next installment.

Starred review from May 15, 2019
A Texas private investigator and his assistant are hired by a man who is looking for his brother, but what unfolds is something completely different. It's 1973 in Beaumont, Texas, and Tom Phelan is trying to make a go of Phelan Investigations with the help of his assistant, Delpha Wade, who is recovering from injuries inflicted by a serial killer in a previous case (The Do-Right, 2015). And that's only one of Delpha's problems. She went to prison at 18 for killing a man who raped her. Now 32, she's on parole and learning to navigate a world with freedom, choices, and even new social exchanges. "Congratulations to you," she says to someone about a new baby--a phrase she's never uttered before in her life. When an elderly man named Xavier Bell asks them to find his brother, Tom and Delpha's meticulous research uncovers more than anyone expects. What sounds like an ordinary PI caper, though, becomes something elevated, poignant, and complex in this beautifully written novel. The author's use of dialogue is perfectly regional, and her descriptions evoke a cross between Raymond Chandler and James Lee Burke. A briefcase "might have been rubbed with twenties to give it the mellow sheen," and "the desk man was a middle-aged cop whose starched shirt could have worked the shift without him." The author also conveys the realities of doing research in 1973, from using phone books and libraries to tracking down old paper records. Proving that anything old can be new in the right, talented hands, Sandlin has crafted an outstanding series that readers will want to follow and savor.

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June 1, 2019

Sandlin's second Delpha Wade and Tom Phelan mystery (after The Do-Right) features private investigator Tom and his ex-convict secretary Delpha. After a brief reminder of Delpha's conviction for murder, and how it still haunts her, a new client hires Tom to find his long-lost brother to mend wounds of the past before it's too late. Tom and Delpha know immediately that their new client, using an alias and disguise, is not completely forthcoming about why he wants to find his brother. Set in 1970s Beaumont, TX, the story unfolds as the investigators rely on traditional methods--phone books, libraries, public records, ruses, and hunches--to solve the case. But the truth may come too late as they weigh their ethical obligation to their client with the impact reuniting the brothers may have. During the process, as Delpha demonstrates her talents and Tom begins to acknowledge her as an investigative partner, they both sense there is more to their relationship. VERDICT Reminiscent of classic mysteries by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, with more character development and a strong, capable female lead, this will appeal to fans of Lou Berney, Walter Mosley, and Kent Anderson.--George Lichman, Rocky River, OH

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
Just months out of prison for involuntary manslaughter, Delpha Wade again is forced to defend herself as she kills a man, a convicted serial killer, who stabs her in the Phelan Investigations office. She's held by police (she's an ex-con, and in Beaumont, Texas, in the 1970s, that is a legacy not easy to overcome), but, finally, she is not charged and goes to work for PI Tom Phelan, helping him try to locate the brother of client Xavier Bell, who wants to patch things up with his sibling. But Bird is far from truthful, and the real story, slowly ferreted out, is darker and more complicated than it appeared initially. In the process, Delpha discovers the wonder of reference librarians and their provision of free information, and Tom gets involved in the case of a wife in an open marriage who wants to know what her husband is up to when he leaves town. Like her award-winning debut, The Do-Right (2015), also starring Delpha Wade, Sandlin's sequel soars on the wings of its spot-on evocation of a time and place and its utterly compelling central characters, Delpha and Tom, as their mutual respect and trust grows, along with a dash of sexual tension. A first-rate series crying for word-of-mouth support from all readers' advisors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)