Beating the Babushka: Tim Maleeny

"Travis McGee never hid behind a tree. Sam Spade didn't lurk behind behind bushes. Nero Wolfe never even left his apartment..."

Well, that 'debasement' he was worrying about beat the heck out of ending up in the surf a few minutes later with a bullet crease in his side and the guy he was hiding from dead on the sand. Yeah, Cape Weathers is back and making friends all over...

...and I like ol' Cape; really, I do! ...but I don't know as I'd want to be one of his friends; he seems to attract things that go bang and go boom (usually targeted in his direction) pretty much everywhere he goes. Then again, life isn't all that dull for him, what with running a one-man detective agency in the City by the Bay.

Sally's back too, and drawn as tight as that bow she's packing. ...and it's a good thing she's along. The not-suicide of a movie producer has Cape dealing with both the Mafia and the Tongs. ...and heroin and maybe even a drug war. ...and, of all things, an ex-KGB major and his pet bear that Cape flushes out of nowhere in his usual style (that would be setting himself up as a target of opportunity).

All this set against the backdrop of The City, drawn by someone who can give us the feel of each section we visit as we follow Cape on his attempt to find out why the producer died and how the heck the tangled web he's uncovering ties together. The investigation leads to New York and where he makes yet another deadly "friend" and into the labyrinth of the film industry's accounting system. Who killed Tom? Who is so insistent that Cape be killed? What is he so close to that he cannot see?

Oh, yeah, Cape Weathers is back, and this book is one fine read.

Five stars...

-----------------------------
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: MIDNIGHT INK (October 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0738711152
ISBN-13: 978-0738711157
Buy the Book
Visit Tim Maleeny's Site