The Secret History of Las Vegas

Prickly detective Salazar believes conjoined twins Water, a handsome six-footer, and Fire, a foot-long protuberance from Water's side, are responsible for mass-murder body dumps. They aren't. Salazar enlists the help of psychosis researcher Sunil Singh, a man who can ponder Lacan while making love to his prostitute girlfriend and whose past is darkened by atrocities under apartheid (and is thus being stalked by a former colleague bent on his destruction). Singh knows for certain that the twins are innocent of the body dumps (though not innocent of everything, as it turns out), because he knows who is responsible: his employer, the Institute. (Nothing is given away here that the book doesn't freely reveal.) There are many deaths and murders, most accounted for, but only one is actually "solved"—the shooting of Singh's stalker by Salazar. The book gets off to kind of a clunky start, but then the narrative takes off, and it's interesting to watch the developing relationship between Salazar and Singh right up to the fiery conclusion.