A review by vkemp
For the Dead by Timothy Hallinan

5.0

Poke Rafferty is happy, for once. He has a lot of money, that really doesn't belong to him and life with Rose and Miaow is going well, except for the part where Miaow is a teenager and really, really annoying. Miaow's best friend, Andrew Nguyen, loses his cell phone and so Miaow and Andrew skip school in order to find a new phone before Andrew's very strict father finds out about the loss. They find a phone and buy it, but unfortunately, when they open up the pictures, they discover pictures of two police officers who have been murdered for their part in a murder-for-hire scheme. The next day, Miaow and Andrew go back to return the phone but discover the store has been destroyed by someone looking for the missing phone. Now, Miaow and Andrew are on the run from bad, bad men. Poke is scared for Miaow and he and Andrew's father go on the hunt for the men who appear to be willing to kidnap the two children. The hunt is on. As always, the plot twists are remarkable and all the characters are well-defined. I do not know how I missed reading this book in the series since I adore Tim Hallinan and all his characters.