Barbados Heat

As in Bruns's mystery debut, Jamaica Blue (2002), music journalist Mick Sever doesn't so much detect as just survive in this unconvincing tale of sex and murder with a Caribbean flavor. Robert Shapply, a born-again congressman, has turned over a new leaf and now wants to clean up the record industry by holding hearings designed to put some rappers and theirs labels out of business for good. Shortly before the hearings, someone brutally murders Shapply on the steps of his D.C. townhouse. Once friendly with Shapply and best friends with Shapply's stepson, Nick Brand, Mick soured on the duo when they left him almost bankrupt in a failed joint enterprise. Soon Nick is in jail on suspicion of murder, and an up-and-coming rapper is fingered as the hit man. Nick's imperious mother, Alicia Shapply; Alicia's brother, evangelist Joseph Evans; and Mick's ex-wife, Ginny, help liven up the proceedings, lending advice or assistance as Mick tracks the story from Washington to Florida and Barbados into the distant past. Unfortunately, the author's staccato style seems merely disjointed and the plot wanders so off key, readers will be unable to carry the tune. (Nov. 10)