cover image Caught Looking

Caught Looking

Randy Russell. Doubleday Books, $16.5 (227pp) ISBN 978-0-385-42124-9

In his third appearance (after Blind Spot ), ex-convict, gambler and father of a teenage daughter, Alton ``Rooster'' Franklin is asked by his friend Carolyn to help her sister's husband, a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. Because Rooster served time for car theft, Carolyn thinks he has the savvy to trace Rowdy Monroe's stolen Cadillac, with the pitcher's special glove in the trunk. Rooster is contacted by a teenage car thief named Bird, who has not only the glove but also a videotape taken from the car, showing Rowdy having sex with someone other than his wife. Bird has made arrangements to sell the tape to the woman who appears in it, and promises to give the glove to Rooster if he'll accompany him to her motel. After too much time passes, Rooster enters the room and finds the woman shot to death, with no sign of Bird. In addition to covering his tracks, Rooster must figure out what's so important about the glove--especially after the pitcher's trainer drowns and Carolyn and Bird are abducted. Likable Rooster and his cohorts keep a fairly banal plot alive all the way to its predictable end. (Jan.)