A Brewski for the Old Man: A Sherri Travis Mystery

A humid summer mystery, this third book in the Sherri Travis series is as mundanely pleasant as a lazy day in the Florida resort town where it's set. This time Travis, still trashy and impetuous but composed enough to run a successful restaurant and maintain a long-distance relationship, gets caught up in another improbably dramatic swirl on the small island. Her childhood abuser, the steroid-engorged security guard who molested her while dating her mother, reemerges, seemingly up to his old tricks. But then he's murdered, and Travis is too involved to make much sense of the crime. Then Travis's absentee father, the titular old man, unexpectedly returns seeking peace, but his law-skirting chaos gets in the way of reconciliation. This installment, initially rushed in the way of sequels, has a slapdash air that seems appropriate to the loose, breezy tone and adds to the sense of genial messiness. Wry and surface deep, even when dealing with the psychological trauma of child abuse, it skims by with enough violence and smut to interest but not depress, the magnetism of its protagonist exerting as much pull as the plot. (Sept.)