The Bottom Line: Addictive from start to finish. First Case delivers a wildly inventive blend of corruption, assassins and financial skulduggery, all infused with the series’ devilishly dark humor.
In First Case, former homicide detective and attorney Vance Courage and his clever fiancée, Lauren Gold, have a problem most criminals would envy. They’re sitting on an $80 million fortune derived from cartel money, but their attempts to launder it have repeatedly gone sideways. Their new scheme is to establish a law practice that will actually serve as a front for private investigations.
Gordon delivers the couple’s first client during a visit to a Florida horse farm that goes spectacularly wrong. Lauren, who once worked as a cocktail waitress to scrape enough cash for horseback riding lessons, is now paying $50,000 annually to lease one. But when she’s kicked in a freak accident, and Vance, who is severely allergic to horses, rushes to her side, he suffers a potentially life-threatening reaction.
Enter the horse’s owner, Claudia Conrad, who comes to his rescue with an EpiPen. Later, Claudia follows Vance to a nearby barbecue restaurant, where she reveals that her 28-year-old son, Chad, was recently found dead in his eighteenth-floor Fort Lauderdale apartment. Police have ruled his death a suicide, but Claudia is convinced he was murdered. The couple soon finds themselves on the other side of a criminal conspiracy that threatens everything they’ve accumulated.
Gordon has always kept the series fresh by turning our expectations of legal and law enforcement professionals upside down. When readers first met Vance, he was a debt-ridden attorney living in a shabby Miami apartment and driving a Nissan Cube. A chance to acquire cartel wealth changed the couple’s trajectory, but having millions has hardly solved their problems. After a string of failed attempts to legitimize the cash, the couple’s latest scheme formalizes something they’ve been doing throughout the series: investigating crimes, often to save their own skins. This time, however, they’re actually getting paid to do it.
Is First Case a soft reboot of the series, in which the soon-to-be-married couple will have investigations brought directly to their door? It’s an intriguing possibility. But what matters for series fans is that the couple remain morally compromised protagonists making questionable business decisions, all wrapped in a delicious cloak of dark humor.
Here, Gordon’s brisk dialogue, colorful personalities, and steady introduction of new evidence maintain momentum throughout. The novel also gives Vance’s family responsibilities greater prominence, adding emotional weight to the increasingly dangerous investigation. His elderly mother, Isabel, and aunt Sophia find themselves in a precarious situation of their own, while the colorful Verona makes an unlikely addition to their lives. Particularly memorable is Ethan, Vance’s technologically gifted teenage relative, whose curiosity and computer skills become more valuable to the investigation. He’s a character we’d love to see more of.
Vance and Lauren may have finally found a legitimate business worth pursuing. Whether they can make a success of it without putting their fortune, freedom and lives at risk is another matter entirely. One thing is certain: Gordon has given readers another wildly entertaining adventure, and this new direction for the series is one worth following.
