Product Review

The hard-boiled detective genre gets a millennial makeover in this smart Chicagoland mystery.

Little Village finds Duncan Walsh and his girlfriend, Ginger McAllister, in their small office on historic LaSalle Street. Duncan spends most days buried in the minutiae involved in being the managing editor of their start-up blog, Vision: Chicago, while Ginger holds the enterprise afloat as the marketing and advertising wiz.

With its small staff of unpaid interns, the Vision covers news, sports, politics, the art scene…and missing persons. The blog had received a good kick-start when the team tracked down a missing university student. Of course, the investment by Duncan’s best friend, Luis Martinez, was a big help, too. So when Luis comes to Duncan with another missing person case to investigate, there can only be one response.

An adorable nine-year-old girl has gone missing. However, she’s undocumented, as are her parents, which complicates matters. But Duncan is as determined as ever to find her, going so far as to create a dangerous alliance with local gang leader Oscar Sosa.

Navigating the dark underworld of human trafficking brings more surprising twists and turns, as Duncan learns just how vulnerable the Windy City’s sizable community of undocumented immigrants is.