Who doesn’t love an irreverent badass who admits he’s a screw-up? Duck Darley is the most damaged anti-hero you’d never want to meet in a dark corner of New York City. In Casey Barrett’s The Tower of Songs: A Duck Darley Novel (Kensington) East meets West when a Chinese power deal goes terribly wrong. A government is watching, but whose?
A former Olympic athlete and rich kid turned poor by his father’s failed Ponzi scheme, Duck finished a 13-month stint at Riker’s for dealing weed. He’s a junkie and an alcoholic, but he’s trying to kick his bad habits—he’s on the “weed-only wagon” with a few Xanax to smooth the rough edges. A buzz-free life is just not an option. Duck admits he’s damaged, even diagnosed with PTSD, and knows his former fame in The Post as “Death Darley” precedes him. But he’s given up alcohol—for now at least—so his (unlicensed) private investigations business is looking up. His role of Mistress Dispeller—helping rich women scare away their husbands’ mistresses—has been on the upswing. But Duck is shocked when seventeen-year-old Layla Soto, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world, hires him to find her missing father, hedge fund manager Danny Soto.
Read the rest of my review at BookTrib.com.
