THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: An Emma Price Mystery

Rand's debut novel—billed as the start of a series—is an occasionally diverting but also disturbing tale about a 40-year-old investigator who happens to be pregnant and always on the verge of losing her lunch. Emma Price has one child—the sharply drawn Liam, aged 10—and is expecting another with her often-absent husband, Will, a self-centered filmmaker whom she plans to dump before her pregnancy is obvious. Then Liam's beautiful babysitter, Bea, winds up murdered and Emma finds herself sucked back into the job she used to do so well: investigating for the public defender's office. Bea's death appears to be linked to the shooting of two cops by a young woman who prowls New York's downtown club scene, and as perturbing as Emma's constant nausea is her refusal to tell Laurence Solomon, the handsome black cop looking into Bea's death, about her connection to the case. Of course she and Solomon conceive a mutual attraction, which is handled in a breezy, believable fashion. And the gimmick of Solomon's ease with murder victims' family members (he grew up in a family of undertakers) is interesting and unusual. But Rand's plot takes some arbitrary turns, and genre clichés like Solomon's partner's constant stuffing of himself with fast food don't help to overcome the reader's persistent queasiness. (Aug. 5)

FYI:HarperCollins invokes the names of Sue Grafton and Susan Isaacs in its publicity for Rand's first effort, and enough fans of both successful writers might just sample this to give it a jumpstart.