NEW RIVER BLUES

A middling second case for Tucson homicide detective Sarah Burke.

After a night of drinks, drugs and toy-boy debauchery, wealthy Eloise Henderson and her plaything of the moment have their faces obliterated. Called to the crime scene by appalled neighbors who heard the shots, Chief Delaney hands the double homicide over to Sarah, who settles on the cuckolded husband Roger, a major property developer, as the perp. Unfortunately, his alibi—a trip to Phoenix where he spent the night at an escort service, then got dinged up in a car crash on the way home—holds up. Eloise’s daughter Patricia, by turns helpful and hysterical, points them toward the catering help, which included Pauly, now one of the corpses, and his ex-con buddy Nino, now on the run. Also under suspicion are Zack, Madge and Felicity, who dabbled at the Grant Street Theater between catering gigs. Sarah’s home life is as chaotic as the crime scene between her mom having heart problems, her druggie sister Janine popping up again, her niece Denny moody and suspicious and her new boyfriend Dietz, also a cop, still recuperating from on-the-job wounds. Eventually, both the Henderson and Burke family situations are straightened out, but probably not for long.

As stolid and serviceable as its predecessor (Cool in Tucson, 2008), but not a patch on Gunn’s Jake Hines series.