cover image The Frog King

The Frog King

Frank McConnell. Walker & Company, $18.95 (226pp) ISBN 978-0-8027-5748-7

McConnell ( Murder Among Friends ) regales us with a Rabelaisian epic in the latest assignment for PI Harry Garnish of Skokie, Ill. When Harry's boss, Bridget O'Toole, phones to ask him to join her in Santa Barbara, Calif., he fumes but obeys: a former nun, Bridget is a master of the art of gentle persuasion. Harry must help Bridget's young friend Kim and her fiance, David, search for David's daughter, thought kidnapped by his ex-wife, Carla, a star in skin flicks. Trying to trace the actress, Harry, an alien in funky California, follows a serpentine trail, surviving gunshots, a night in jail for drunk driving and the menacing company of his biker cellmate Cado. Bridget, however, sees through ``Satan's brother'' to the real Cado, a scholarly and moral man whom she trusts to assist Harry, who finds yet another unlikely ally in Carla's gay best friend and costar in adult films. It's hard to part from McConnell's characters at the resolution of this bawdy, tense, hilarious and deeply moving mystery. Mystery Guild alternate. (July)