Archy McNally, Lawrence Sanders’s sleuth in McNally’s Dilemma, takes the call one minute before he turns off his machine at midnight. It is his old friend Melva, with some bad news. Geoff Williams, erstwhile tennis pro, four-flusher cad, and husband to Melva, has met an untimely end a bullet through his chest. Melva has called Archy to report the murder and to confess that she did it. Of course, Archy and we have been around murder mysteries long enough to know that the murderer is never, never, the one who claims she did it at the beginning of the book. But unraveling the plot takes us through Sanders’s special domain, the Palm Beach cafe society set, and the parasites who live off of it.

Archy’s first job is to find Melva’s daughter and fetch her back to the murder scene. She turns out, of course, to be the requisite gorgeous twentysomething. And, of course, she finds Archy irresistible, even though he is older. In the end Archy finds the real murderer, returns to his long-term girlfriend, and enjoys his gibson at the Pelican Club, ready for the next adventure.

It may be a formula, but this book is packed with charm. There is, for one thing, Archy himself: sardonic, sartorially challenged, the son of the best society lawyer in Palm Beach, booted out of Yale Law, and now a private eye. Think Travis McGee in an ascot. He is fond enough of unusual hats that he has berets custom made in Connecticut in puce, among other colors. He also has enough quirky wise cracks to rival a Groucho Marx movie: The music was pure disco, the beat of which has always reminded me of how the ogre’s heart must have sounded when he chased Jack around the beanstalk. Even the minor characters especially the minor characters are loaded with the eccentricity and texture that make you think Sanders just can’t be making this up.

Americans, I’m told, love to read about rich people. If that is true, then Sanders has hit his market, but with a delightful band of villains and friends in this picaresque, charming whodunit. ¦ John Foster is an attorney in Columbia, South Carolina.

Elvis has left the city L.

A. Requiem, the eighth and newest Elvis Cole novel by Robert Crais, is like a bride: it brings something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. The old is the familiar pairing of Los Angeles private eye Elvis Cole and his partner, the violent yet noble Joe Pike. The new is that much of this story is told in third-person some from Pike’s point of view and some from an omniscient narrator’s.

The borrowed is the fact that Crais has dipped into other genres to enliven this book. Departing from his standard mystery novel style, he has added a sinister and suspenseful thriller plot element . . . which of course we won’t reveal here. And the blue is the uniform of the LAPD, which plays a very large role in the story as both villain and hero.

With seven solid novels behind him, and a growing legion of fans, why has Crais departed so boldly from what has worked before? Well, like his hero, he doesn’t mind taking risks, if it’s in a good cause. I wanted to write a deeper book, Crais says. The characters have been there for seven novels, but I felt the need to expand. I wanted to push out the boundaries of the way I write detective novels. I wanted a larger book. In length, complexity, depth, and seriousness, he has succeeded. The many twists of the complicated plot take Elvis and Joe deep into Pike’s past, a past that before this book has been only darkly hinted at. Joe’s backstory has been growing for me, Crais says. In general terms I’ve always known the type of home he grew up in. But the specifics of it I created when I was writing. That was one of the many adventures on this book. Elvis’s ongoing relationship with Louisiana lawyer Lucy Chenier also goes through some adventures, as Pike’s problems intrude on her and Elvis in new and dangerous ways. In this book, Elvis has to make tougher personal choices than he’s ever had to make, Crais hints. And Lucy is learning things about Joe that scare her, and then she drops that on Elvis. He has to make a choice. Negotiating Elvis’s psyche and developing a detailed history for the fascinating Pike, a former Marine and LAPD officer, was only one of the challenges Crais faced. The amount of investigative detail in L.

A. Requiem adds police procedural to mystery and thriller in the cocktail that is the book. I’ve done ride-alongs with LAPD for years now, he says. But for this book I learned more about more areas. I needed to know how homicide detectives work at a crime scene, how they interrelate with coroner’s investigators, how Robbery-Homicide differs from a precinct’s homicide desk, how a task force is structured. To assist in that research, Crais called on the fruits of his first writing career for television. After moving to Los Angeles from Louisiana in the 1970s, Crais worked on scripts for many TV shows, including Quincy, Baretta, L.

A. Law, Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice. The law enforcement contacts and knowledge of police work that he gained have proved invaluable.

Also useful was his family history. Three uncles and two cousins are or were police officers. I know that under the badge police are just like anyone else, except they know a kind of cynical truth about people that they carry with them. This cynicism contrasts sharply with Cole’s trademark optimism. His skills are not in clues and legwork, but in reading people, understanding motivations. Cole can smash down a door or take a villain with the best of them, but his tender side is more evident than his sidearm.

And after meeting Crais, who says all my characters in one way or the other are me, one understands why. Elvis is the work he has aimed for since he was shooting Super-8 movies in his back yard in Baton Rouge, since he wrote short story after short story and got endless rejection slips. Elvis works out, likes to cook, and collects Disneyana. So does Crais.

What is not so apparent is that, as Crais puts it, Joe is me, too. I can use Joe to explore some of the darker corners of me. In this book, though, I reveal to people that Joe is a very human, albeit controlled, person. Most people would point to Joe’s past and say that he’s not a law-abiding person. But Joe is a good man. Crais grew up in Baton Rouge, a town he describes as solidly blue-collar, and one in which a creative kid who writes comics and short stories and who films movies is the craziest kid in town. People don’t grow up there wanting to become writers. Crais broke that mold. When you’re 16 years old and you read Raymond Chandler for the first time, it knocks you over to think that a human being can do that on a page. It’s like making magic. I said that’s what I want to do. He moved to Los Angeles after a series of odd jobs. He studied sample television scripts for format. Without a TV in his house, he hung out in department stores, watching shows and taking notes. Then I started writing scripts, I found an agent through a friend, and eventually one of them sold. But novels were still on his mind, two dust-gathering, self-described horrible manuscripts notwithstanding. Then, in 1985, in a real-life plot twist, Crais’s father passed away.

My mom was terrified. They had been married for 42 years and she had never written a check, never paid a bill. And we went through a period where our roles were reversed. It was while I was wrestling with that that Elvis Cole was born. In The Monkey’s Raincoat, published in 1987, Cole takes a woman named Ellen Lang under his wing after her husband is murdered and her son kidnapped. I like to think that I was given a Calvin and Hobbes transmogrifier that converted me into Elvis and my mom into Ellen Lang, Crais says. That sense of intimate caring, that feeling of assurance that comes through even amid Cole’s wisecracks and attitude, is what makes the series so successful.

L.

A. Requiem ends with Cole musing on the city he calls home, the city that, more than in any other Crais novel, plays a role equal to any character’s. Cole almost revels in the transitory nature of the urban sprawl that is Los Angeles. Crais has the same feelings.

All that stuff that he says at the end, that’s my L.

A., he says. People come here to make their dreams come true. That’s why it’s such a powerful and edgy place. There’s such a sense of transition. Things have to change. Even detectives in novels and the way they are written. Life for Elvis will only get more complicated, Crais concludes.

James Buckley, Jr., is an associate editor with NFL Publishing in Los Angeles. His latest sports book for kids, Eyewitness Football, will be published in September by DK Publishing and the NFL.

Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe, part Paiute Indian and part Mormon, is the lead character in the first in a new series by Los Angeles author Faye Kellerman, known best for her Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus mysteries. Set in Las Vegas, Moon Music is a tour of the desert city as much more than the grown-up playground of today. Decker is the lead investigator in a series of grisly show girl murders. His primary love interest and investigative partner is Hindu pathologist Dr. Rukmani Kalil who, along with Poe’s twin brother Remus, slightly batty Mother, Emma, and high school sweetheart, Alison Jensen, allow Kellerman to introduce themes of mysticism and fantasy along with her respect for religion as a motivating and moderating force in human dynamics.

In an eerie prescience, the plot of Moon Music is entwined with Nevada’s infamous Yucca Flat atomic test site. Emma Poe reminisces about her senior class trip to see the mushroom cloud, They took us there very early in the morning . . . before dawn. It was dark and cold and a little spooky. We had to hunker down in these troughs that the soldiers had dug a couple of years before. We were just these kids, giggling and telling scary things because we were nervous. But we were excited too. . . . Ten! Nine! Eight, seven, six . . . even with my eyes closed and covered with my arms, I still saw this . . . this fantastic burst of light shooting through my skin . . . like God was recreating the universe. And then . . . at the same time . . . you felt this big blast of heat . . . sizzling through your clothes. And when they said you could look up, you did. And there it was. Right there in the sky . . . that famous mushroom cloud . . . what a thrill! Indeed. What a thrill. Not every character in the book is enchanted with the nuclear age, We explode something like a thousand bombs into our atmosphere after exploding only two bombs in enemy territory. Now you tell me. Who came out better, huh? Meticulous documentation of the early detonations at the Nevada Proving Ground are a stark reminder of the days of public innocence the days when support for the atomic program was considered a certain patriotic duty, On January 27, 1951 a one-kiloton bomb named Able was dropped above Frenchman Flat . . . More bombs followed, each one christened as if the government were birthing an infant . . . from Able in 1951 to . . . Little Feller I in July of 1962. Faye Kellerman’s talent for deeply complex characters, riveting action, and thorough research keeps us sitting on the edge of our seat, wide awake late at night. Moon Music is an energizing, terrifying, thought provoking introduction to the Las Vegas of Romulus Poe and Rukmani Kalil. You’ll want to go back often and stay late.

Donna Headrick is a researcher and a columnist for the IntrepidNetReporter.

It often seems that certain contemporary mystery writers own a city: Robert Parker owns Boston, J.

A. Jance owns Seattle, Robert Crais owns L.

A., and Sara Paretsky owns Chicago. By the same token, T. Jefferson Parker owns Orange County, California. Each of his seven previous novels, from the groundbreaking Laguna Heat to the recent Blue Hour displays his familiarity with and affinity for the sun-drenched communities of California’s south coast. Parker’s latest novel, Red Light, picks up where The Blue Hour left off, chronicling the life and times of Sheriff’s Investigator Merci Rayborn.

It has been two years since the death of Merci’s partner Tim Hess, her sometime lover and the father of her child. In the intervening months, Mercy has kept her nose to the grindstone at work, while still trying to find the time to be a good mother. She has only recently started keeping company with a member of the opposite sex, another sheriff, and the road has been somewhat rocky to say the least. When all of the clues in the murder of a young prostitute seem to point to her newfound sweetheart as the perpetrator, Merci is faced with the tough decision of telling what she knows, information which will further implicate her boyfriend, perhaps beyond any hope of extrication. The plot thickens as Merci realizes the details of a 30-year-old murder bear a striking similarity to her current case; to confound matters further, fingerprints found at the scene of the current crime appear to belong to someone who has been presumed dead for years.

The further Merci digs, the more she begins to believe the two cases are intertwined, and that the answers she seeks may in fact lie with some of the most highly placed individuals in the current law enforcement administration. Somehow she must make her case without alerting the powers-that-be to her strategy.

As in each of his previous books, Parker has given us a thoroughly human protagonist, flawed but ultimately moral. Merci Rayborn is among his best; as such, she has the distinction of being the only character that has appeared in more than one of his novels. Red Light, like its predecessors, is a book for reading in one sitting, so block out a long evening free of distractions; you won’t want to put it down.

Bruce Tierney is a writer in Nashville.

In The Twisted Root by Anne Perry agent of enquiry William Monk is asked by Lucius Stourbridge to help locate his missing fiance, the widow, Mrs. Miriam Gardiner. Miriam departed a gathering at the Stourbridge estate and, along with coachman Treadwell and the coach and team, vanished. Lucius is crushed; his parents and maternal uncle Aiden Campbell act similarly. But they reveal that Miriam was perhaps a step down in station, over-familiar with servants, and at least nine years their son’s senior.

Presently, the coachman is found murdered, and Miriam is presumed the killer. Monk, an ex-police officer fired for insubordination, believes there is more to the crime. With the assistance of his new wife Hester Latterly, Monk pursues an investigation that, with classic Anne Perry twists, leads into Victorian bedrooms and, eventually, the courtroom. ¦ Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin’s.

Veteran NYPD detectives Joe Gregory and Anthony Ryan make their fourth appearance in Edward Dee’s Nightbird. The longtime partners know the boroughs, the worlds, and underworlds of urban New York as intimately as the cop saloon they frequent. When Broadway actress Gillian Stone plunges many stories to her death, many assume suicide. This theory is bolstered when the detectives learn that her employer, producer Trey Winters, had requested that the young woman submit to a drug test. If she’d been using, her career would halt.

But word filters down that Gillian and Winters were lovers. And the case is complicated by the detectives’ discovery that Danny Eumont, Ryan’s nephew, had once been involved with the dead woman. What begins as a routine case becomes a complex and personal challenge to the partners.

Edward Dee, an ex-New York detective, paints backdrops with authenticity and cynicism. Gregory and Ryan, purposeful and sharp, take different approaches to crime solution, yet blend their insights to reach resolutions.

Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin’s.

Shooting at Midnight by Greg Rucka begins not with the author’s compelling character Atticus Kodiak, but with the bodyguard’s sometime lover, Bridgett Logan. This New York cop’s daughter is a streetwise investigator and recovering addict with a sense of justice and a weakness for drugs. Bridgett is asked to honor a promise made years ago to Lisa Schoof, a fellow down-and-out teenager. But the pledge to help protect her from an abusive ex-lover gets twisted. Lisa wants to murder Vince Lark.

Within hours, Lark has been killed in a shooting gallery, Lisa refuses to speak in her own defense, and Bridgett realizes that her father’s service revolver is missing. Bridgett must risk her life to learn the circumstances of the murder. The investigation exacts horrendous sacrifice, and Atticus is delivered a mysterious summons. To tell more would ruin this gritty novel’s true-to-life suspense.

Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin’s.

Stone Quarry by S. J. Rozan extends an award-winning series with plot and personal repercussions from last year’s A Bitter Feast. Bill Smith and Linda Chin are attempting to mend their relationship by keeping a therapeutic distance she in the City, Bill at his upstate New York escape cabin. Even with classical music in the air, the boonies are not peaceful. Smith and Chin’s resolutions of past situations have led to a grim expansion of problems. A body in the basement of Smith’s favorite hangout and a woman requesting his expertise in tracking stolen art without police involvement force Smith to break his own policy of not working while on vacation. Rozan’s seamless writing ranges from glorious to no-frills, the action is backwoods tough, and Stone Quarry is consistently believable.

Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin’s.

Anyone who has followed the sleuthing of Kinsey Millhone won’t be surprised to hear that Sue Grafton, in this 15th installment of what many people call the Alphabet Murder series, has been successful again. What will surprise readers is the journey into Kinsey Millhone’s past, something that until now, Grafton has withheld (well, save for some tidbits here and there). In fact, O Is for Outlaw is solely about Kinsey’s past. And because it is, readers are treated to aspects of Kinsey’s personality that make the character more real, more fallible, infinitely more interesting. The book begins when a shifty character contacts Millhone claiming to have a box full of Millhone’s personal documents. This event pulls Kinsey into a web of intrigue that forces her to confront some very real demons, some her own making, some the making of others. Thus, Millhone reassesses choices she made regarding her ex-husband and their marriage and sets out to right wrongs before it’s too late. In sum: She’s on the case, tracking a 20-year-old murder, navigating the very tricky path of memory, while, at the same time, trying to come to grips with choices she made long ago. One of the reasons O Is for Outlaw is so intriguing has less to do with the actual mystery and everything to do with Kinsey Millhone’s moral dilemma and it’s a doozy of a dilemma. In the interim, readers are treated to Grafton’s expert storytelling abilities, coupled with her subtle sense of humor. Kinsey is still funny, quick-witted, and charmingly self-reflective. It’s Kinsey’s honesty that makes her so endearing.

This isn’t the normal whodunit. Rather, this book is about the wonderful details of Kinsey’s former life. Grafton has opened a new door, but what next? O Is for Outlaw makes you want more: more Kinsey, more information, more mysteries being solved by this tough cookie, who isn’t as tough as she thinks.

Good novels provide settings that are more than ancillary. Distinctive locales become added characters. In Blue Moon, John Leslie’s fourth Key West-based Gideon Lowry mystery, a bluesy, island mood pervades. Leslie creates ambiance that blends a wistful, laid-back existence with the hurry-up veneer of a tourist mecca. This transformation, from ocean breeze-swept outpost to a hustling, high- dollar, real estate boomtown, brings financial pressures and transient visitors, and the dangers borne by each. Leslie captures the camaraderie of longtime residents, and the challenges they face: the intoxication of attractive strangers, and new, sometimes illicit sources of income. Private investigator Gideon Lowry is a part-time piano lounge entertainer. He’s also a Conch, a Key West native who bemoans his lost days of youth, the funkiness of a carefree, tropical life. He also regrets losing the love of restaurant owner Gabriella Gaby Wade. So when Gaby asks that Gideon do a background check on her new fiancŽ, widower and newcomer Roy Emerson, Lowry approaches the task with mixed emotions. Gaby describes Emerson as a man who puts deals together. Lowry would love to find a flaw in his character.

Lowry has other problems and opinions. The elderly owners of the mom-and-pop Cuban grocery next to his Duval Street office and apartment are being pressured to sell out. Fred Pacey, a developer with a 20 year history of ignoring tradition in favor of homogenized facades, wants to construct a central shopping mall for tourists. Lowry, too, has received offers. Positioning himself as a stalwart holdout, Gideon advises his neighbors not to sell out and ruin their way of life. Secretly, he wonders if it isn’t time to take the money and abandon the downtown rat race. Lowry’s initial queries into Emerson’s lifestyle connect the man with developer Pacey. Then, late one night, arson destroys the grocery. Gideon feels guilt over his bad advice, and his suspicions regarding the tropical terrorism are founded upon no solid facts. Soon Lowry is breaking all the rules: working on his own nickel, and trying to solve two simultaneous cases that may not exist. He walks the tightrope between rescuing his ex-lover from a danger that only he perceives, and his nightmare, destroying the friendship for good.

Advice from a Jackson Hole, Wyoming investigator (where Emerson’s wife died in a climbing accident), and help from old acquaintances, Detectives Dave Robicheaux in Louisiana and Hoke Moseley in Miami, prompt Lowry to stage an ill-advised ploy to expose the past and rescue the future. Throughout Blue Moon, Lowry runs on knowledge and instinct, but his feel for the turf, the unique island nuances and politics, mold his judgment and actions. He gambles friendship, takes risks. John Leslie’s version of the false carefree life in the Keys grips the reader and deepens suspense. Gideon may be left standing alone, staring at the cold, blue moon, but readers will appreciate the depth of this fourth book in the Lowry series.

Tom Corcoran is a writer in Florida. His first novel, The Mango Opera, was released by St. Martin’s Press in June.