Gumshoe on the Loose

By Rob Leininger

USA Today best-selling author

“Rob Leininger captures the voice and heart of the classic PI mystery and manages to make it completely original at the same time—Mortimer Angel is my new favorite Private Eye.”—John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling author

IRS agent-turned-PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars. At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon—Jo-X to his legions of fans—hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father—and even more shocked when the father hires him to investigate the murder.

Mort, being Mort, accumulates a few felonies as he follows the clues to Las Vegas. And along the way, he picks up an alluring young assistant who changes his life—in every conceivable way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
• Release date: Apr 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781608092758

Reviews for Gumshoe on the Loose

[bbofje · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of “Gumshoe on the Loose” by Rob Leininger from The Librarything’s Early Reviewers program. This thriller about an ex-IRS agent turned P.I. Was quite entertaining. The more I read, the faster I turned the pages. I’ll look for other novels by Rob Leininger. Plus I learned what Occam’s Razor means.

[johntgriffin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I requested and was lucky to receive a copy of “Gumshoe on the Loose” by Rob Leininger from The Librarything’s Early Reviewers program. First off I enjoyed this book. The beginning was very slow and I wasn't sure i could finish it, but when he got to the desert diner the book started jumping and form then on was a fun, fast read. The characters were well drawn for not being the first book in a series. You know there was more to the past but not enough that would discourage one to not to pick up the other books. I would recommend this book. I did pass it on to my wife to read.

[almadmc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fun book, having read Sam Spade books I enjoyed PI Mort. His relationship with Lucy was hysterical but oddly believable.Very easy reading. The plot was just twisted enough to keep you interested.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have always maintained that writing a humorous, yet appealing mystery is one of the hardest genres to write in. So few have kept my interest, but Rob Leininger's Mort Angel series is definitely one. In this episode, a dead rapper is found in the garage of the daughter of a Reno policeman, Russ Fairchild. How he got there is anybody's guess. Fairchild hires ex-IRS agent turned maverick private investigator, Mort Angel, to look into it, since he wouldn't be constrained by 'the rules'. Along the way, Mort meets up with beautiful 31 year old Lucy, who looks 19, who becomes his 'assistant'. Leininger refers to Sam Spade and Mike Hammer a lot in his books because the repartee between Angel and virtually everyone reeks of pulp fiction mysteries of the 1940s. There's always the beautiful girl throwing herself at him now that he's a PI, whereas as an IRS agent they avoided him like the plague. The Mort Angel series is not high on 'literary' content and probably not high on plot, but you just keep reading because it's fun and you're willing to go wherever the story takes you. If you want an alternative to the serious police procedural or the moral detective series, Mort Angel is a good one. Think of it as a humorous Spenser, smart repartee and a faithful sidekick, but with a little bit of fun thrown in.

[lewilliams-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Gumshoe on the loose is a slow paced, light read. There wasn't enough of this story to hold my interest.

[cathyshelton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A delightful book about Mort (not Mortimer) Angel who has a knack for finding dead bodies. He is hired by the daughter of a detective with whom he has a love/hate relationship while his boss is out of town. Her last words before leaving town was to NOT find the body of the.missing performer Jo-X. While visiting with his new client he discovers the missing man dead in the shed behind their rented house. In the process of trying to figure out who killed them he decides to take a trip to Las Vegas where the man resided. Along the way he stops at a diner and hooks up with a waitress, Lucy,, who ends up fired while waiting on him. She goes to Vegas with him and she has incredible luck at the roulette table. Mortgage takes Lucy under his wing to help her learn more about becoming a private detective and they h as 've quite an adventure while solving the murder of the missing man along with more. Good book and a quick read.

[jjking_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

And I have to say I really have enjoyed it can't wait to get my hands on the next one if you like the Spenser Series this one is just as enjoyable... thank you Library Thing for introducing me to a new author that I may have overlooked.

[srazz-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While this book is the third in the serie, I still enjoyed it. There were a couple references I was a bit confused about, but I was able to get past it! This book is an enjoyable throwback to the campy PI movies and books of old. Honestly, I am not sure if this is a parody of Sam Spade et al, but this is how I took it and that made the book all the more exciting. The writing was not up to par with my usual books, it was a very easy read. But honestly, sometimes we all need a quick, easy book in our lives! I would probably go back and read the other two so I know what I've been missing.

[takeara · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Light, quick, easy read. I wouldn't really classify it as a mystery, as there wasn't really any mystery to it. It wasn't necessarily a bad read, just not quite my thing.

[bryanwilson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This had a great plot and moved along nicely. It seemed like it was an homage to Mickey Spillane, in style and content. He was mentioned several times (I appreciated the shoutout to James Lee Burke), and breasts featured prominently in the book, being mentioned almost every page it seemed like. If you like boobs you will probably enjoy this book. This seems like a shallow compliment, but it really was well written and engaging. It's not literature by any means but if you want a good racy whodunit I would definitely recommend it.

[etheredge-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fun read, if you like the genre (which I do.) It is the third in the "Gumshoe" series by this author, and based on my enjoyment of this book I plan to read the earlier ones in the future. The narrator is a 42 year old "Private Investigator Trainee". He is described early on as a maverick, and he likes that description of himself. Like many other fictional P.I.s, he is not above skirting the law to get what he needs to solve a case, but he does possess a moral compass. We learn that in the previous two books, despite his inexperience, he has been involved in two cases that brought him national attention, and right away he seems to have come across such a situation again.When a foul-mouthed rap star goes missing for 5 days, the tabloids go crazy. Then our hero Mort discovers his body quite by accident, suspended from the ceiling of a garage rented by a newly acquired client. Then the client (and possible suspect) disappears as well, and the merry chase begins. At a far-out-of-the-way restaurant in Nevada, Mort encounters a waitress who has just been fired, and needs a ride to civilization. She is 31, but looks like 18, so Mort refuses to let her into his car until she shows proof of her age. Lucy soon decides that she would like to learn the P.I. business, and they become partners in the investigation. Before too long, they are partners in another way as well. Lucy's youthful appearance is often an asset as they work in disguise to gather information.There are numerous plot twists, snappy dialogue, sexy situations, battered heads and gun play along the way. Lucy and Mort find themselves in a beautiful suite of the Luxor in Las Vegas some of the time (paid for by Lucy's luck at roulette), and in a four room 1050s style motel in rural Nevada other times. Various suspects come into play, and in the course of the investigation they get involved in another seemingly unrelated and even weirder case. Of course the situation is not cleared up until the final pages.Will we see Mort and Lucy together again as a P.I. team (a team with benefits, one could say)? I am pretty sure that there will be a fourth "Gumshoe" novel that will answer that question.

[claudiaannett · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I normally like tough guy detectives, and the Las Vegas/Reno setting sounded great, but this mystery was ultimately disappointing. There is a lot of snappy dialogue and humor, but the characters were a little too cartoonish, not real. And not much detecting goes on, the text is almost all dialogue.

[orteacher · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Mustang convertible, hot desert air, and a lusty new assistant that matches up well with PI Mort Angel. These are key elements in "Gumshoe on the Loose", by Rob Leninger. I would have enjoyed the book if there had been no murder to solve just because of the interplay between Lucy and Mort. However there is a pretty good plot involving a murdered rap star and a detective's daughter that carries the book along. Leininger does a great job with moving things along - with Lucy and Mort's relationship as well as the investigation into how a dead rapper ended up in the garage of Detective Russell Fairchild's daughter. All of the elements you like to see in a good detective story - sex, gambling, buddy helping buddy, danger and escape - are present in this fast moving novel. I was engrossed in it quickly and it held my attention.The only flaws I found were that there was a bit too much time spent with the flirtation scenes and a bit too many coincidences at the climax. But those are minor detractions. Easy to give this one 4 stars, perhaps even a bit better. I haven't read any of Leininger before, but I will track down the first two installments in this series and see if they measure up to this one.

[rockyroad1370 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book had snappy dialogue but the majority of the book seemed to be dialogue concerning female body parts. It was somewhat entertaining but not much mystery. If you want some light reading I would recommend but if you're looking for a thriller this is not it. Slow.

[azroadrunner88 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An easy read and enjoyable. a famous rapper is murdered and strung up in a garage in Reno, NV. Mort is hired, kind of, to follow and solve the case. Fun read!

[jumbler-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not the type of book I usually read. That being said, I did enjoy the book. Mort is a former IRS agent turned PI. He likens himself to Mike Hammer. There are quirky characters introduced throughout the book and I wondered how they would all be tied together to solve the murder mystery. The author did a good job of describing the characters and the setting so the story had a plausible solution. Fans of Mike Hammer will like this book.