The Loud Adios

Winner of the publisher's annual Best First Private Eye Novel contest, this brooding, atmospheric tale set during WW II stirs a heady brew of corruption, Nazis, a blameless young girl and a fortune in gold. PI Tom Hickey, drafted in his late 30s and deserted by a wife who deems him both too honorable and too poor, agrees to help young soldier Clifford Rose rescue his beautiful but simpleminded young sister, Wendy, from the Tijuana dive where she dances nude. Hickey, an MP stationed at the border crossing near San Diego, Calif., has useful connections. But the mission is complicated by the sinister Senor Zarp, a Nazi thug using Wendy in certain bloody rites designed to bolster the local German populace and corrupt Mexican officials in their support of the fatherland. Freeing Wendy, Clifford is killed and Hickey finds himself the guardian of an otherworldly innocent to whom he is painfully attracted. When she tells him about a mountain of gold being held by Zarp and an obscenely wealthy Mexican family, Hickey, with the aid of a few poor Indian laborers, decides to commandeer the loot and derail a Nazi invasion scheme. Kuhlken ( Midheaven ) weaves a complex plot around a complex man, a weary hero who tries to maintain standards as all around him fall to temptation. (Aug.)