Bookstore owner Nikki Griffin can find you a copy of A Wrinkle in Time. She can recommend a good book based on your favorite. She can talk Steinbeck and Hemingway. And she can hunt down a missing person or find a blackmailer with nothing more than a phony VIN number and a couple of calls to friends. Whether she’s working as a bookseller or private investigator, she is not to be trifled with.

When Martin Johannessen hires Nikki to look into his mother’s dalliance, she is skeptical. An old money family, the Johannessens wouldn’t go out of their way to draw attention to themselves. But Martin mentions that maybe this man has been taking advantage of his mother and her generosity, so Nikki agrees to do a little digging. She talks to Martin’s siblings for more information, and then se follows the man when he heads our of San Francisco.

She picks up his trail in Monterrey, and just as things get even more complicated, Martin calls her back to San Francisco to fire her. He explains that the situation resolved itself, and her P.I. services are no longer necessary. But Nikki disagrees, and she goes around him to the matriarch herself to get re-hired to jump back in the fray. With little more information than a Mercedes VIN number, Nikki gets some help from a friend with experience in the car theft business, and she makes her way to all the answers she needs.

Coming up against stupid crooks, misogynists, lowlifes, narcissists, career criminals, and genuinely dangerous men, Nikki keeps her wits about her and uses her brains as well as her fists (and a small arsenal) to stay alive and find a sort of frontier justice in her fight against these bad men. Careful to hurt only those who deserve it, Nikki stays true to herself and her values while maneuvering through levels of deception, crime, and manipulation.

S.A. Lelchuk’s One Got Away is more than a taut P.I. novel. It’s the story of an anti-hero, a woman who sets out to avenge the wrong done to her and her brother by setting wrongs right for others. This is only the second novel in the Nikki Griffin series, but it’s already destined for the screen.

I really enjoyed One Got Away. Griffin is a strong woman who doesn’t shy away from difficult situations or dangerous people, which makes some of these scenes difficult to read. But the writing is excellent, and seeing Griffin go after her own personal retribution is gratifying. It’ not perfect, and it’s brutal in places, but it’s also enjoyable (if you have a strong stomach), and sprinkled liberally with moments of genuine warmth and literary references. .

Egalleys for One Got Away were provided by Flatiron Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.