Black Fall by Andrew Mayne

Harper Paperbacks, 384 pages, $15.99 (c2017)

Apparently “Black Fall” is the third “Jessica Blackwood” novel. I admit to missing the first two. Shame on me. “Black Fall” is entertaining with the strong, endearing first-person voice of Jessica Blackwood, a magician’s assistant — by way of her magician father and grandfather — and now FBI agent.

Jessica’s strength is her ability to see past the “illusion” high-level criminals create because of her background. When a village in Bolivia is flooded out and many lives are lost, Jessica works her logic to figure out why the flood occurred. Was it really because of the big storm that hunkered over the village? Or was it something far more nefarious? Here’s a hint: It was something far more nefarious.

Strangely, Jessica’s charm comes from her admitted awkwardness and bluntness. But she’s far less blunt than one of her FBI cohorts, Jennifer, a computer nerd. Other members of Jessica’s team are Gerald, another computer nerd, and Dr. Ailes, Jessica’s mentor. They comprise the “X-Files” wannabe team. Actually, this book reminded me somewhat of Preston and Child’s Aloysius Pendergast series. Over-the-top situations occur and peculiar FBI agents must save the world.

Jessica is much more vulnerable and human than her woo-woo FBI predecessors. She is affected by her trickster childhood and the valuable lessons she learned at her family’s collective knee, but it is that background that she now attempts to flee.

As an FBI agent, she has racked up impressive wins and acquired impressive enemies, one reminiscent of the creepy and brilliant Hannibal Lecter, star of several of Thomas Harris’ books. But he’s in prison. So Jessica visits another creepy and some say brilliant criminal, Ezra Winter, a radical environmentalist. He, too, is in prison. Apparently, “prison” might be a relative term.

Let me back up a bit. In the beginning was an attempt on her life by a stranger. Then an earthquake hit the East Coast. Then came an old videotape of an eight-years-dead physicist predicting the present day quake. Then came the flood and another old videotape of the dead guy predicting that. Jessica, because of her background, is more likely to sniff a con than her fellow agents. And that is what happens. But who or what is pulling the con? And why did that woman attack her?

The situation becomes pretty outlandish and will probably make a visually thrilling movie until it sort of abruptly thuds to earth at the end. But this appears to be a setup for the next book.

"Black Fall" has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Mystery.