Saul Lelchuk has two novels in the Nikki Griffin series, and they have been very well received, appearing on several “best books of the year lists.” I recently received an invitation to hear Lelchuk read at Northeast Alabama Community College on March 19th, so I bought and read the most recent, “One Got Away.”
Like the first novel, this action crime thriller has as protagonist a young woman, Nikki Griffin. Readers love her. Nikki 5’ 8”, is very physically fit. She boxes, lifts weights, runs for exercise, is a pool shark, rides a motorcycle, does not own a cell phone, insists on gin martinis (no vodka!) and owns a bookstore, the Brimstone Magpie, in Oakland, California.
Nikki’s second career is as a private detective. She will accept cases of all sorts: following cheating husbands, finding missing persons, but her specialty, her passion, is helping battered women leave abusive relationships. She helps them find a safe refuge and then explains to the man involved that the violence has got to stop, or else.
A terrifically dangerous woman, she carries a pistol and collapsable baton in her purse, has an ankle holster and mace on her keychain. Nikki has rules: she never escalates. But if her adversary wields a knife, or a club or a firearm, she responds in kind. When the occasion calls for it, she puts on a slinky dress, lipstick and heels and can mesmerize the bad guys.
“One Got Away” opens with a surveillance job. An older, very wealthy San Francisco woman is being escorted by and giving a lot of gifts to Dr. Geoffrey Coombs, a sophisticated Englishman, who is certainly a con man. Nikki discovers his secrets and then finds herself involved with a vicious gang of human traffickers, smuggling kidnapped girls in from Mexico. With the help of various semi-legal buddies, she carries the day, but not without some lively mayhem.
“One Got Away” is a lively read and stood alone just fine, but I wanted to know more, to learn the origin story. How did Nikki get that way? So, I read the first book, “Save Me from Dangerous Men,” the title of which is practically sarcastic, since the men she fights with end up maimed or dead.
“Dangerous Men” involves Silicon Valley corporate espionage, potentially terroristic software, the FBI, and crooked lawyers. Again, Nikki perseveres through double crosses, torture and violence. And here one learns of the trauma in her childhood, the killing of her parents, foster homes and how she found refuge in a library, reading constantly, her safe place.
The reader also learns how she met and still manages a successful relationship with Ethan, a gentle soul who was a graduate student in English at Berkeley and is now a young assistant professor. These two avid readers make an odd but happy couple.
