Buried Lies

Beneath the glamorous milieu of country clubs and professional golf, there lurks an unpleasant underworld of crime and vice with which Kiernan Lenahan, the amateur sleuth introduced in Local Knowledge, is becoming reluctantly familiar. Golf pro at the Milton Country Club, Lenahan, a former lawyer, is a suspect after an arson fire destroys his pro shop, the adjoining cart garage and the living quarters of the Hispanic restaurant workers, killing one fireman. All too coincidental is the apparent suicide of popular caddie Jackie Mack, hit by a train the following morning. Determined to clear his own name and obtain a full Catholic funeral for Jackie, on whose caddying genius he was depending to make the PGA tour, Lenahan undertakes his amateur investigations, discovering a group called the Latin Cooperative, something akin to a Hispanic Mafia, with a firm grip on the workers and their families. Daly's tale will be of more interest to golfers than the general reader, as the only real excitement comes when Lenahan enters the PGA tournament at Winged Foot. Featuring mostly uninteresting characters and carrying a lead weight, this round lacks suspense and comes to a rather abrupt ending. The one bright spot is Jackie Mack, whose story, as it posthumously unfolds, provides the mystery implied in the book's title. (May)