cover image No Good Deed: A Bert Swain Mystery

No Good Deed: A Bert Swain Mystery

Paul Nathan. Permanent Press (NY), $24 (202pp) ISBN 978-1-877946-56-1

Like its predecessor, Protocol for Murder, this second mystery by PW's Rights columnist involving Bert Swain, PR chief at a Manhattan medical research center, is a sprightly performance with charm to burn. Here, Swain is asked to investigate the death of lawyer Donald Jarrell, whose fatal poisoning in his hospital bed remains a case unsolved by the police. It turns out that as a child Jarrell had been the lead witness in the prosecution of a couple who ran a country day-care center, accusing them of sexual abuse of the children. Apparently he had come to regret his role, and had begun planning a book; but who would want him dead? With the aid of his cheerful lover, Eve, Bert asks around among the dead man's friends, relatives and law partners, and comes up with a theory. But then Bert begins to suspect that he, or his 12-year-old daughter visiting form Canada, may be in danger. The solution is a bit perfunctory, and Bert and his daughter don't seem in real peril, but the narrative style is brisk, Bert is amusingly self-deprecating and the transcripts from the ancient child-abuse trial are riveting. (June)