Bad Moon

The good news is that FBI agents Gibbons and Tozzi (last seen in Bad Business ) are back for a fifth appearance. Even better news: their main foe is again Mafia capo Sal Immordino, aided and abetted by his sister Cil, a nun. Sal, feigning madness in a New Jersey asylum, schemes to take over the Mistretta family and to eliminate Tozzi, the one person who knows he's not crazy. After a bloody--and funny--mob rub-out, Sal's plan slips when the attack on Tozzi fails. Helped by a corrupt asylum guard, Sal plans to make the hit himself and make a psychopathic young killer the scapegoat, but complications ensue when the psychopath's medication runs out. Meanwhile, Gibbons fights office politics (a female psychologist-agent is brought in over him) and Tozzi broods about nearing 40 and fears continuing impotence. The climax, set at a big Mafia funeral, is hilarious, and features a corpus ex machina. This series dazzles with fast, intricate plotting, terrific characters and humor: Cil, in full ecclesiastical drag, ``turned into a nun, a real nun, like the ones Sal remembered from Catholic school. Brutal.'' Only the FBI won't like this one. (July)