The Sidewalk Hilton

Cook ( Death as a Career Move ) weaves strands of the fourth Antonio ``Chico'' Cervantes case rope-tight and ties them off with equal expertise. In what he calls ``sort of a missing persons job,'' the L.A. ex-cop, now a private detective, is hired to find 70-year-old Benjamin Sterling, a missing Chicago businessman in whose L.A. hotel room another man was shot to death. A few days later the elderly executive turns up in the company of homeless Julio Alviera, a high school acquaintance of Cervantes; Sterling, who has conceived of a way to help Chicago's homeless, was doing some research in the field. Sterling and Alviera return to Chicago, leaving Cervantes to deal with the false accusation that he's behind the blackmail scheme plaguing a Mexican actress he had lived with before she became a TV star. News that Sterling has been killed draws Cervantes to the Windy City to help out Alviera who has been charged with murder. Cook's consideration of homelessness and ethnicity are carried forward by lots of action, a well-turned plot and robust characters. (May)