Special Delivery: A Case for Nick Polo

Nick Polo, Kennealy's ex-cop/ex-con San Francisco-based PI, narrates his seventh caper--after last year's Green with Envy --smoothly, earnestly and with a note of sanctimony now and then. Polo's millionaire friend Raymond Singh hires him to deliver a cashier's check for $60,000, as well as a letter and an audiotape (both in Hindi), to his cousin Gurbeep ``Gordy'' Singh in London. After finally connecting with the elusive Gordy, Nick accompanies one of his associates to a seedy nightclub, where he soon realizes that the ``slave auction'' he's witnessing is for real. The gentlemanly Nick must fight his way out, but the next day he's questioned about the murder of a clerk of Gordy's. Nick is allowed to return to San Francisco, where Raymond's terrified teenage niece tells him that her uncle has vanished. With his reporter friend Jane, Nick tracks a suspected child prostitution ring and faces danger in a newly built fortress-like palace in the country before Kennealy wraps things up with a neat, if fiery, resolution on a yacht near Vancouver. (Dec.)