An index to how zany this stand-alone crime novel from British author Bowker (I Love My Smith & Wesson
) can get comes when the narrator confesses his unintended complicity in several deaths, a suicide, a car bombing, an incident of eye-gouging and similar atrocities, and his concerned dad frets, "You realise all this'd break your mother's heart if she knew about it?" That comic deadpan tone infuses all the wild events that sweep up book dealer Mark Madden when he lets manipulative ex-lover Caro back into his life. When Caro asks milquetoast Mark to kill her ex-boyfriend, her father and her loan shark, he doesn't say yes, but he finds he can't quite say no, either. The first two deaths happen despite his intercession, but they're enough for Caro to become filthy rich and marry Mark. Problems only worsen, though, with the newlyweds fleeing assassination attempts, a cyberstalker and the loan shark. There's no plot to speak of, only a series of random incidents whose escalating intensity goad Mark to become a man of action, but Bowker keeps the pacing brisk and the droll humor flowing. Agent, Barbara J. Zitwer. (June 6)
