Soft Money

Former New York City cop, now unemployed single mom Filomena Buscarsela, born in Ecuador but now living in N.Y.C., agrees to find the killer of a neighborhood grocer when it looks like the cops have given up because the Santo Domingo mob may be involved. As Fil begins asking around, she finds that people are afraid to talk because they fear a local voodoo priestess's wrath. Meanwhile, Fil is hired as a manager by an environmental activist organization, only to discover how mismanaged it is. The need to juggle her two-year-old daughter and new job slows down her investigation into the grocer's killing, despite help from a rookie cop. Taking the rookie under her wing, Fil schools the black woman in how to shave the edges of the law. At work, she realizes that the activists are laundering money for her old adversary, tycoon Samuel Morse. Now with two wrongs to right, Fil divides her time between the murder investigation and bringing Morse to justice. Fil's adventures, including a voodoo protection ceremony and a walk through industrial sewers with EPA agents, are great fun for those who like their fictional reality bent by hyperbole. Fil herself is a hyperbolic character, spewing enough acerbic opinions to fill half a dozen average mysteries. With energy like that, it's no wonder that her debut in Wishnia's first novel, 23 Shades of Black (to which this is a spirited sequel), was nominated for an Edgar and an Anthony, despite being self-published. (June)