Like the other books in this series, a reader gets what he/she expects--plus something more. In this case, a tense, engaging mystery, coupled with plenty of midwestern enthusiasm for basketball and a detective that is, by turns, a hopeless curmudgeon and a sauve "leading man." I really, really like this book and the rest of the Deets Shanahan stories!

This is a mystery that came right out of left field. A key friend of mine, a virtual expert in the realm of homophile mysteries, said kind things about it, and that set me to searching for it. I found a used copy in a Charlotte, NC, bookstore and read it right away. The book doesn't "totally" meet the expectations I had of it going in, but it is a pleasant enough read with its moments of action and suspense. Zachery Grayson is a middle-aged cookbook writer of some repute whose dreary, unadverturous life is changed by an encounter with the mysterious operative Manny and a trip to Mexico. The plot revolves around obtaining a computer chip vital to a secret organization's plan to revamp the failing American civilization. That's as much of an explanation as we get of the shady goings on, which involve high level figures from politcs and the corporate business world. What's more important here is Zachery's transformation from wallflower to man of action, in which he is aided and abetted by Sali, a street urchin of indeterminate age but unmistakable resource and beauty. Zachery is "recalled to life", so to speak, and that epiphany, or series of epiphanies, forms the heart of the book and provides its main interest. A decent enough novel, a passable time waster, written in a largely telegraphic, declarative style that put me in mind of the old John Preston series of Alex Kane adventures. I'm sorry Tierney apparently decided not to follow through with other books featuring Zachery. it would be interesting to see what became of him and his Sali.