The Toe Tag Quintet

The five enjoyable novellas in this collection from Australian author Condon (The Trout Opera) chart the adventures of a 37-year veteran of the New South Wales police force, recently retired to Queensland’s Gold Coast. What the unnamed former policeman fails to reckon with is his abnormal skill for being at the wrong place at the wrong time—whether it’s a chance encounter with an old enemy that drops him into the middle of a violent quarrel over lost paintings, library visits that leave him a target for a mad man, or a friend’s sudden death that drags him into the deadly world of food reviews. He accepts his role as fate’s chew toy with remarkable good humor, surviving knocks that should leave him a motionless form in a chalk outline or otherwise a bloody corpse. For those who like a light approach to serious crimes. (July)