The Button Man by Mark Pryor, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Hugo Marston, the new head of security for the US Embassy in London, is assigned to watch over a couple of American actors working on a film outside the city, who had been arrested for a hit-and-run but released into the custody of the embassy, only to find the body of the one of them hanging in a local park, in The Button Man, the fourth mystery in this series — but a prequel to the first — by Mark Pryor.

The dead woman is Ginny Ferro and her partner Dayton Harper is devastated by the news. Hugo decides the best course of action is to keep Dayton secluded from the press while the police investigate what happened in the park. But what is initially thought to be a suicide turns out to be murder, and Dayton takes off on his own to find the person responsible. With the MP for the area in which the hit-and-run took place accompanying him, Hugo is on a frantic search for Dayton to stop him from making matters worse.

The most enjoyable aspect to The Button Man is that it is one unexpected plot twist after another. Just when Hugo seems to be making headway in finding Dayton, something happens — or someone enters the scene — and turns his world around. That the sequence of events is all quite credible is all the more remarkable. And how it all ends is just as unpredictable as what came before it. It's not at all clear why the storyline is written as a prequel — the action takes place in 2008, and the earlier books in the series are set in Paris, when Hugo is assigned to the US Embassy there — but that's neither here nor there. This is a well-constructed and plotted mystery with an appealing cast of characters and a fine addition to this entertaining series.

Acknowledgment: Seventh Street Books provided an ARC of The Button Man for this review.

The Blood Promise
Seventh Street Books (Trade Paperback), January 2014
ISBN-13: 9781616148157; ISBN-10: 1616148152

The Reluctant Matador
Seventh Street Books (Trade Paperback), June 2015
ISBN-13: 9781633880023; ISBN-10: 1633880028

The Button Man

A Hugo Marston Mystery by Mark Pryor