Parts Unknown

The second Devlin Kirk mystery ( Suicide Season ) from the author of the Gabe Wager series involves the Denver PI with a biker gang, a series of missing illegal immigrants and a graphically described business in organ transplants. Because business is slow for Kirk and partner Bunchcroft, they take on an insurance surveillance assignment to determine whether a biker who has won a large disability settlement is truly disabled. They also agree to a friend's request to search for a young Salvadoran who entered the U.S. without papers, and subsequently vanished. Efforts to document the biker's fitness provide comic relief from the grim developments concerning the missing man. Determining the latter's rare blood type and learning of two more missing illegals who are pregnant leads Kirk to a biotech research lab and the convoluted trail of an organ-selling scheme. Fights and chases with a motorcycle gang mix with procedural sleuthing and well-documented medical details, adding up to a competent, slightly unusual mystery tale not for the squeamish. (Nov.)