Ticket to Die for

A priest-turned-lawyer, Walker has written three gritty Mal Foley mysteries, including Half the Truth (1996). He now brings his crisp dialogue, a fine comic edge and a cast of sharply drawn supporting characters to a new series featuring a spirited wife-and-husband sleuthing team based in Chicago. The husband is Dugan, a police academy dropout who's now a lawyer specializing in personal injury cases; the wife is Kirsten, a law-school dropout and former cop who's now a PI. Kirsten asks Dugan to accompany her to Cousin Freddy's, an adult bookstore where she hopes to track down a witness. Instead, the pair are near witnesses to a killing that may be a Mafia hit and that marks them for similar attention. A kidnapped exotic dancer, two further murders, a pair of vicious thugs and a slew of lawyers (a cheap shyster, a powerful deal-maker, a couple of militant anti-pornography crusaders) are among the highlights that make this adventure complex and memorable. The spotlight, however, belongs to the leads, whose interplay is wry but not cutesy, and will have readers looking forward to the next in the series. Agent, Jane Jordan Browne. (Nov.)