Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead

The first Finlay Donovan book had a premise so ridiculous that it should not have worked: a struggling suspense novelist is mistaken for a hitman and decides to go along with it. The second book, Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead, has an even more ridiculous premise: someone on the internet has offered a hundred thousand dollars to kill Finlay's ex-husband, and Finlay has to stop them. It works because Cosimano commits to the chaos. The plot is a mess, but it is a deliberate, fast-moving mess, and the voice is funny enough to carry you through the parts that do not quite add up.

The problem with Steven

Finlay Donovan is a divorced mother of two, Delia and Zach, and a novelist who is perpetually behind deadline. Her ex-husband, Steven, is a dentist or a sod farmer depending on how much you trust his explanations, and he is not a particularly good person. He is, however, the father of her children, and Finlay is determined to keep him alive. That determination is the engine of the book. It is also the source of most of its comedy.

The threat comes from an online forum. A user called FedUp has posted a contract on Steven's life. Another user, EasyClean, has accepted it. Finlay has been monitoring the forum for weeks, hoping to identify the poster before anything happens. When she realizes that EasyClean is serious, she does something that only Finlay would do: she offers to take the job herself, for half the price, so that she can control the situation and keep Steven alive.

It is a terrible plan. It is also a very funny plan, because it puts Finlay in the position of pretending to be a killer while trying to prevent a killing, and because it forces her to lie to everyone around her, including the police detective who is interested in her and the lawyer who is also interested in her.

The domestic comedy is just as important as the crime plot. Finlay is trying to finish a book, feed her children, manage a custody schedule, and keep a man alive, and the novel never lets her forget that the school pickup does not care about any of it. Delia and Zach are never mere props. They are funny, demanding, and inconvenient in the way real children are. The scenes where Finlay tries to have a normal conversation while a body or a lie is waiting in the background are some of the best in the book. The contrast between the ordinary work of mothering and the absurd danger she keeps walking into is the series' signature.

The forum is a good satire of internet confidence. People post threats they do not expect to be taken seriously, and then someone does take them seriously. FedUp is angry, not clever. EasyClean is a professional, or claims to be. The gap between the language of the forum and the reality of violence is where the comedy lives. Cosimano does not moralize about it. She just lets the posts sit there, next to a woman who is trying to decide whether to pack lunches or follow a hitman.

Vero

Veronica Ruiz is Finlay's live-in nanny, business partner, and closest friend. She is also the best character in the series. Vero is competent, secretive, and willing to break the law when the situation calls for it. She has a past that she has not fully explained, and this book starts to pull at that thread. Finlay discovers that Vero has been using a different surname and that her financial situation is worse than she admitted.

The friendship between Finlay and Vero is the emotional center of the book. They are two women who have been underestimated by almost everyone in their lives, and they have decided to trust each other. Their loyalty is not sentimental. It is practical, occasionally illegal, and very funny. When Vero's secrets come out, Finlay does not abandon her. She gets angry, asks questions, and then helps. That is what the book is about, more than the mystery.

The investigation

Finlay hires Cam, a teenage computer expert, to identify FedUp. Cam cannot solve the problem, and then Cam and Theresa Hall disappear. Theresa is connected to Steven through an earlier relationship, and her best friend, Aimee Reynolds, is close to Finlay's children. The investigation expands in several directions at once.

Finlay and Vero break into Steven's office trailer at the farm. While they are there, someone firebombs the trailer. They escape, and they find financial records pointing to an out-of-state storage unit. With help from Ramón, Vero's cousin, they enter the unit and find a chest freezer containing the dismembered remains of Carl Westover, one of Steven's former business partners. The case has gone from a threatened murder to an actual murder with a body to hide.

The trail leads to Theresa, who explains that she was engaged to Steven but had an affair with Feliks Zhirov, a Russian mobster associated with the forum. Theresa says Feliks killed Carl and made her dispose of the remains. Aimee helped her move the body. The explanation is not entirely convincing, but it moves the plot forward, which is what the book needs.

The mobster and the lawyer

Feliks Zhirov is the novel's villain, or one of them. He is a Russian mobster with a restaurant, a lawyer named Kat Rybakov, and a great deal of influence. Finlay meets him through Nick, the detective, and then meets Irina Borovkov, a woman with ties to Feliks. Irina sends Finlay a black wig so that Finlay can impersonate Kat and visit Feliks in jail. Feliks agrees to take the forum offline, which solves one problem and creates several others.

The book has two romantic interests: Nick, the detective, and Julian, the lawyer. Both are handsome, both are interested in Finlay, and both are pushed to the side by the plot. The romance is not the point, but the book keeps teasing it. If you are reading for the love triangle, you will be frustrated. If you are reading for the mystery and the banter, you will be fine.

The fake death

Finlay and Vero find Cam hiding at a mall, and he steals Vero's car. When they return home, Steven is waiting in the garage. Vero knocks him unconscious. They photograph him and send the image to FedUp as proof that the killing has been completed. Then they tie him up and leave him in a motel room.

The plan is to flush out FedUp by watching who reacts to the photographs. It is a clever idea and a terrible one, because Steven is not actually dead and because the people they are dealing with are not amateurs. The photographs set off a chain of events that leads to the Westover property, where Finn and Vero find a private cemetery and a freshly prepared grave with a headstone claiming that Carl died of cancer months earlier. Carl's wife confronts them with a shotgun. She is also Theresa's mother, and she has been helping to cover up the murder.

The shootout

The climax is a shootout at the Westover property. Aimee's phone shows that she is not FedUp. FedUp messages Vero, angry about the photographs and threatening to call the police. Ted Fuller arrives, and Finn accuses him of being FedUp. He misunderstands and admits that his wife set fire to Steven's trailer, which is not the confession Finn was looking for. Then gunfire comes through the window.

Nick arrives after tracing Aimee's calls to a nearby cell tower. He is pinned down behind his car. Finn makes an incendiary device from a wine bottle, giving Nick a chance to reach cover and shoot both attackers. Nick is wounded in the arm. Finn realizes that Steven's phone has a tracking app, and that EasyClean may be using it to find him. She calls Steven and tells him to go somewhere public. He says the van has broken down and he is waiting for a ride.

Finn reaches Steven as another car approaches. She warns him that it is not a tow truck. He refuses to get in her car, and then the driver opens fire. Steven dives into the Aston Martin, and Finn throws his phone out the window to stop the tracking. They get away. Steven apologizes for doubting her, agrees to bury Carl's torso on his farm, and promises to visit the children before leaving town.

The solution

The final revelation comes at Christmas Eve dinner at Finlay's parents' house. Susan McDonnell, a family friend, complains about domestic work and reacts visibly when the conversation turns to the forum. Finlay realizes that Susan is FedUp. Susan explains that a computer technician who came to fix Finlay's father's computer showed her the forum while she was angry about Steven's treatment of Finlay. It is a small, petty, human explanation for a plot that has involved mobsters, murder, and a lot of gunfire.

The police have arrested Bree's mother instead, which means the legal resolution is incomplete. The book is more interested in the comic reversal than in the paperwork. It also leaves several threads open. Vero's debt, what Feliks has on her, EasyClean's identity, and Finlay's romantic indecision are all still unresolved. The epilogue introduces a new obligation: Feliks sends Finlay evidence that EasyClean is blackmailing him, along with an order to find out who EasyClean is.

The moral center of the book is the friendship between Finlay and Vero. They lie to each other, keep secrets, and make terrible decisions, but they show up when it counts. Vero's debt is not treated as a joke once Finlay understands it. Finlay's decision to help her is not framed as charity. It is framed as family. That is a more interesting relationship than either of the romantic subplots, and I wish the book had spent more time on it.

The children also give the story something to protect. Finlay's motivation is not abstract justice. It is the desire to keep her kids' father alive so that they do not have to grow up with the knowledge that someone killed him. That is a messy, human motive, and it makes the absurd plot feel grounded.

What works and what does not

The voice is the best thing about the book. Finlay is funny, self-deprecating, and constantly aware of how absurd her life has become. The chapters are short, the dialogue snaps, and the supporting cast is full of people who are either useful or ridiculous, sometimes both. Vero is a great creation, and the scenes between her and Finlay are the reason to read the series.

The plot is the weak point. There are too many characters, too many coincidences, and too many threads that are introduced and then dropped. The transition from the storage unit to the Westover property to the shootout is exciting, but it is held together by luck and improvisation rather than detection. The mystery is less a puzzle than a series of escalating complications.

The book is also very dependent on the first one. If you have not read Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, you will be lost. The relationships, the running jokes, and the backstory all assume that you know the previous book. That is normal for a series, but it makes this one hard to recommend as a standalone.

I would recommend it to readers who liked the first book and want more of the same. It is a fun, fast, forgettable read, and I mean that kindly. It is not trying to be a serious thriller. It is trying to make you laugh while a woman in a borrowed Aston Martin tries to keep her ex-husband from being murdered by a stranger from the internet. On those terms, it succeeds.