Ask Not (Nathan Heller Mysteries)

There’s an old saying which is highly relevant here. Ask Not is neither fish nor fowl. To set the scene, this book is the concluding volume in the Nathan Heller JFK trilogy, and the seventeenth book featuring this PI to the stars. The problem comes with the nature of the exercise.

The series is set up as our hero’s memoirs as he lives through interesting historical times. Focusing on the JFK assassination and its immediate aftermath takes us along some well-trodden conspiracy theory paths. So when Heller finds himself involved in some conspiratorial events before the assassination (described in Target Lancer), he’s not at all pleased to find himself almost the victim of a hit-and-run accident after the event. Never one to assume a coincidence, he sets out to discourage future attempts on his life. So this is set up as a thriller or PI novel with noir possibilities, but it keeps getting interested in recitals of factual information. The result is a book that will neither be satisfying to history buffs who want the latest ideas on who might have been behind the assassination, nor will it please thriller fans because it fails to resolve anything other than Heller’s survival.