Rogue's Wager

Maverick TV journalist Michael Carolina returns in this third adventure (Rogue's Isle; Rogue's Justice), another brisk and funny ride through the corrupt precincts of Providence, R.I., and environs. A mysterious diver is nearly killed when a disgruntled clamdigger, protecting his ""turf,"" tosses a stick of dynamite into the water. Mitt is the angry clamdigger. Tony is the injured man. Tony dies later in the hospital, when an icy female killer, at the behest of known mobster Jimmy Flannery, administers a shot of oxygen to his heart. Carolina finds the story--which involves the acquisition of local land for a casino--mostly through subterfuge: posing as a hospital patient, pretending to be a gambler, passing himself off as a house buyer. Briody lovingly enumerates his cast of losers, the likable ones like Carolina, and the freakish ones like the diminutive Mitt, who unwillingly occupies the center of this narrative. Wily reporters, pretty law officers, mob women posing as realtors--it seems everyone wants sad little Mitt (who only wants to fish the local waters for his illegal livelihood) to end up sleeping with the clams. Briody isn't especially adept at threading his plot lines together, but he employs his considerable storytelling gifts to fashion minor comic set pieces and bring his outcasts to life. (Nov.)