SCAR TISSUE

If there's anything tough guy Brady Coyne (Muscle Memory, 1999, etc.) likes less than clingy, dependent women, it's smart, self-sufficient women. No wonder this Spenser wannabe is miffed that Evie Banyon, his squeeze of the moment, is suddenly unavailable for their usual weekend of “drinking and eating and screwing.” Especially since he needs her right now to comfort him over the loss of his long-time friends Jake and Sharon Gold’s son Brian, 16, who plunged into the icy water off River Road with his girlfriend, Jenny Rolando. But when Brady drives out to the Boston suburb of Reddington to pay his condolences, something's not right. Police chief Ed Sprague is a little too dismissive, Brian's friends a little too tight-lipped, officer Tori Whyte a little too suspicious. Brady pokes into Brain's accident, and his investigation pokes right back when hit man Bob Klemm invades his office with a .22. that Brady answers with a .38, saving his secretary and himself. But he can't trace the dead assassin back to the person who hired him—the real author of this crime spree. Whether justice will prevail is more of a mystery than whether Evie will return to the man who coined the witty dictum “Sometimes we're not thinking about you. Live with it.”

Some plot twists are satisfyingly sneaky, others practically glow in the dark. The tie is settled by Brady's thoroughgoing egoism and complete lack of irony, which turn a thumbs-down on this erratic tale of consequences evaded.