From Publishers Weekly
After a pedestrian start and despite some hackneyed Floridian environmental issues, the second Tony Lowell mystery (after Hour of the Manatee) rapidly intensifies as not one but two psychopaths seize control of the narrative. Divorced, ponytailed Lowell, a Vietnam vet who's crazy for boats and doesn't like guns, is most interesting when he parks his morals and beds a killer's wife. The nephew of an old friend, a young black man investigating a phosphates-manufacturing company, is shot to death. Overworked career-cop Lena Bedrosian, another friend of Tony's and a sometime stick in the mud, asks him to help investigate. The bad guys here, Dickey Cahill and Leonard Smith, are the intriguing characters. Dickey's wife is Tony's unwise conquest. The dead youth had the bad luck to fall for Leonard's girl, who had once tangled with Dickey (and has a kid to prove it). Had Ayres given Dickey and Leonard central roles, this would have been a richer book; had he put more humor into play, he'd have entered Elmore Leonard territory. Still, the vicious twosome are unforgettably bad, providing a nice foil for Tony, who seems a little too good but remains a likable fellow.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Retired photographer, beach bum, and sometime sleuth Tony Lowell is a roguish fortysomething hippie whose only nod to the establishment is his feisty friendship with police detective Lena Bedrosian. Lowell's latest adventure begins when old friend Ernie Larson asks him to investigate the disappearance of Ernie's nephew, Timothy Cross, a young black man who came to Florida to work as an environmental engineer. It doesn't take long for Lowell to find out that Tim's been murdered, but why is another matter. Following a complex and tricky trail of clues leads Lowell through the minefields of racial prejudice, battered women, illicit affairs, industrial cover-ups, graft, and corruption. Veteran writer Ayres knows his stuff--his characters are offbeat and intriguing, his plot is realistically menacing, he offers a nice balance of humor and suspense, and Tony Lowell is a wacky but likable guy who is sort of Travis McGee, Don Quixote, and Willie Nelson rolled into one.
Emily Melton
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