The Blind Key is the second Hugo Sandoval Eco-Mystery by American documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and author, Jann Eyrich. With his newly rewed wife, Carmen off in London seeing to her elderly parents, San Francisco’s Special Inspector for Port Projects, Hugo Sandoval is expecting to utilise the skilled services of his best friend, forensic building inspector T Ray Harrison to spring from jail his recent hire, Javier Julio-Gil, aka JJ. But T Ray is nowhere to be found.

JJ stumbled on a sensitive file while chasing a mouse, recognised it as Hugo’s, left it on the desk of Hugo’s capable assistant, Sara Dunne. But that file disappears and JJ is arrested for stealing a laptop: in the expert opinion of The Weekly Journal’s editor Horton, someone is trying to get at Hugo, who can tend to be outspoken when the City proposes action that threatens the port’s vulnerable environment.

T Ray’s somewhat mysterious invitation to “go fishing” off one of the Blind Key might have come at just the right time. JJ sprung and tucked away safely with Hugo’s foster parents, Hugo heads to Florida, where he’s soon enmeshed in a number of local issues: the fight to save a fishing shop/bar from big-money developers; a trio of Cuban refugees hiding out on Blind Key; what other cargo might be aboard the sunken fishing boat that brought the trio in; pirates, after the cargo, or something else?; and the Cuban artist who summoned T Ray, his ex-lover, intent on dealing with sea-level rise threatening the key.

In a tale that also involves evading the Coast Guard, the sighting of a slave-ship wreck, and discovering a Calusa Indigenous artefact, poached Cuban wildlife, people smuggling and a very important Cuban Tres guitar, Hugo dons swim trunks, goes barefoot, doesn’t shave, consumes quite a lot of shrimp, and some rum, and swaps his trademark Borsalino for a baseball cap. This instalment expands on the backstories of some quirky main characters, as well as adding another few interesting ones who, from the preview, may feature in the next book, The Singing Lighthouse.

As Eyrich sets the scene, Hugo’s (and her own) love for the city of San Francisco is conveyed is some gorgeous descriptive prose: “…the background music as the City’s street sweeper softly swished by along the curbs clearing the parking lane, joined by the deep-throated horn tapping from a Muni bus driving around the waiting taxi. Then a two-part thump echoed as a pair of newspaper bundles tossed from a colorfully tagged box-truck hit the sidewalk near the corner kiosk, followed by random merchants joining the fray from all directions as they rolled up security gates and powered on flickering neon outside their cafes. The finale of the morning composition was in the hands of the seminal shirtless man howling his morning howl as he strolled heroically down the median towards City Lights Books.”

Their intimate knowledge of the place is also demonstrated: “It could take ten, fifteen minutes, or twice as long if the driver failed to factor in the hills, bus lanes, traffic lights or, for some unknown reason, opted not to take advantage of short cuts through alleyways. In the City it was never about speed, it was about flow. Should the driver be seized by rush hour traffic or trapped between a pair of articulated buses in the Stockton tunnel, all bets would be off.”

It’s clear there are plenty more so-far-unresolved issues for Hugo and his associates to deal with, including the cold case of his father’s death. More of this appealing cast and this intriguing series is definitely welcome.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Sibylline Press