Easy Way Down
Irving Weinman. Fawcett Books, $16.95 (261pp) ISBN 978-0-449-90446-6
NYPD inspector Lenny Schwartz ( Tailor's Dummy ) is back to delight old fans and acquire new ones, who should come equipped with a taste for ruminative internal wisecracks. Now 42, Lenny hies down to Miami to confront drug kingpin Roberto Cruz, who, he fears, has a contract out on him, although, as it turns out, Cruz is actually a reluctant admirer of the New York cop. While in Florida, Lenny undertakes a private investigation for his honorary ``Aunt'' Rose whose cousin Abe has been murdered. Probing Abe's death, Lenny meets a gaudy cast of characters: vulgar Stanley Ziegler, Cruz's dumb brother-in-law Jaime, a vain philanthropist and his crooked lawyer/son, and a pair of redneck desperado brothers. He also encounters his Miami police liaison, a beautiful woman with a penchant for S & M, to which he succumbs. The lethal action is undercut by Lenny's cutesy pensees, as when he recognizes ``his need to be the mensch of La Mancha,'' and Weinman's tendency to portray sometimes psychopathic criminals as buffoons. Nevertheless, this lite reading does go down easy. (Jan.)
Details
Reviewed on: 01/01/1991
Genre: Fiction
Mass Market Paperbound - 978-0-449-21705-4