The Gambler by JP Pomare

The Gambler is New Zealand crime author JP Pomare’s follow up to 2022’s The Wrong Woman. Both feature private investigator Vince Reid but that book could easily be read as a standalone mystery, as can this one. In that first book, Reid had a history with the town that complicated the investigation. In The Gambler, Reid is just a PI for hire, although that does not stop him getting into trouble.

Reid is brought to Illinois by his old mentor Nick who has been asked by a couple to look into the death of their daughter Katie. Katie Marshall was a political staffer who was shot at a rally for her boss Ana Guitierrez. The unlikely perpetrator was a local woman called Barb who was in turn shot by one of Ana’s other staff members, Jason King. Reid soon finds that Jason, supposedly a hero, has disappeared, and that the situation is a little more complicated and that it has some potential ties to the local Amish community.

Pomare deepens the mystery by providing a number of points of view other than Reid’s. In particular Katie and Barb. Katie’s narrative mainly centres on her deepening relationship with the decidedly odd Jason, one that she wants to take further but he wants to keep as a friendship. Barb meanwhile has been getting anonymous emails giving her gambling tips and soon Barb and her husband are raking in money but find themselves engaged with a shadowy group known as the “Enigmas”, who seem to have more on their mind than gambling. In another thread set back in 1999, a man called Joe infiltrates the local Amish community trying to track down a man who might have done something illegal in Chicago while on Rumspringa, a period of freedom for Amish teens.

Reid is a classic detective, pushing for answers even if it means putting himself in harm’s way, questioning everyone and everything, even those he is close to. Along the way, Pomare also dips into Reid’s relationship and hints at some deeper secrets involving his father who was himself an inveterate gambler. While the alternate point of view chapters take readers away from Reid as the centre, they are deployed effectively to deepen and complicate the mystery as much as illuminate it.

Pomare has shown in his last few books his ability to construct engaging, twisty mysteries. The Gambler is no exception – it is another great, page-turning work of detective fiction from Pomare.

The Gambler by JP Pomare

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