TRACKING TIME

“Chinese silences are full of meaning,” thinks Detective Lieutenant Mike Sanchez. Actually, it’s a Chinese-American silence that worries him, the one emanating from his ladylove, Detective Sergeant April Woo. Is she truly ready to forgive him for (a) his mild peccadillo involving a girl with long, tan legs, and (b) his pulling rank in the case of Dr. Maslow Atkins, who has disappeared into the leafy depths of New York’s Central Park? April, recalling how often Skinny Dragon, her mother, has advised that too much happiness is not good for a man, keeps her own counsel. Besides, she has a preoccupation of her own. Unlike almost everyone else, she’s convinced Atkins is still alive, despite the heavy weight of hours now arguing against it. Desperate to find him before it’s too late, she calls on an old ally: Peaches, undisputed star of the K-9 corps. At the same time, she works on a different, non-olfactory, lead, though she alone believes it will prove productive. Brandy and David, a couple of rich private schoolkids, are sufficiently bratty to be immensely annoying, but (leapin’ Leopold and Loeb!) murderous? No way, conventional wisdom insists. So while Mike does some obligatory groveling, Peaches sniffs around the park and April sniffs around the suspects. It all comes together in a suspenseful climax that tingles and untangles most satisfactorily.

Colorful characters enliven a well-plotted story. As for April—frequently inscrutable even to herself (Stealing Time, 1999, etc.)—she remains an appealing original.