WITCHY WOMAN

Meet the world's longest-suffering clients: old Mrs. Ogletroop, patron goddess of the Albuquerque Gazette, and Marcus Ogletroop, her grandson and heir. Determined to rescue Marcus's sister Margaret from Women Overcoming the Masculine Burden (WOMB), a commune outside Taos, they've hired Purvis Reasons, an experienced deprogrammer, and p.i. Bubba Mabry. Bubba, whose latest job involved taking $300 to let an insecure husband beat him up, heads out to Taos with Reasons, who sounds more and more like a religious lunatic, and in no time—less than no time—the two have been caught by WOMB denizens armed with spears and thrown into jail for trespassing. But as soon as Marcus Ogletroop can bail the two of them out, they're back on the job, ripe for the news that Margaret's been murdered, apparently sacrificed on a WOMB altar. This news doesn't do much for Margaret's family, and it doesn't get any better for Bubba, who'll go on to watch his crazy partner get killed, and have a narrow escape from glandular re-engineering himself, before tumbling to the conclusion his readers will have reached long ago without risking their lives, their bodies—or a criminal record. Bubba's hardcover debut is seriously undernourished, but it does keep you reading, if only to find which new ways this hapless shamus can find to screw up.