Let me make one thing perfectly clear, the events in this book are totally unrealistic. The idea that any bureaucrat would take, much less get away with, the risk taken by the City Administrator in this novel. And even if such a bureaucrat was willing to take such a risk, I sincerely doubt that he would choose the protagonist of this series, habitually in trouble with the establishment, to be in charge of a modern police department with issues of police corruption. On the other hand, the tale is so fast-paced and the character so well-established in previous books of the series that I was just pulled into the story like flotsam into a whirlpool. I suppose it helped that I knew that the author was now living in West Covina and that I had once lived in a nearby city. The venue for the story was a fictionalized West Covina or Baldwin Park. I could visualize the “no man’s land” described between those civic entities and I understood the resentment between municipal officers and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office. So, there were plenty of connections for me that might not be there for anyone else. The extra special bonus portion of the book for me was that it had a fascinating conspiracy with its attendant paranoid participants and investigators within the tendrils of its tricky little plot. This book cannot be recommended to mystery fans who need a hefty dose of realism in their plots. For some of us, though, the flimsy plot serves the same purpose as a diaphanous gown provides to a groom on a honeymoon. It may not be substantial, but it has a certain welcome aesthetic.
