Bliss: A Lenny Bliss Mystery

Like its villain, this first in a projected series has big ideas but lacks the discipline or the knowledge to achieve them. New York homicide detective Lenny Bliss has the murders of two Russian-born hookers to solve. He's a hangdog kind of a guy, like Stuart Kaminsky's Lieberman, only a little younger and a little less cynical. The dead hookers are both victims of blundering, delusional Johnny Tolstoy, an occasional pimp and aspiring stand-up comic who runs afoul of the Russian mobsters who control the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn. The first dead girl is a dentist with two children, who was working nights to raise the cash to return home. Tolstoy kills the women, pretty much senselessly, and then tries to incorporate his sinister tendencies into his stand-up routine. Bliss's wife, Rachel, is also bitten by the funny bug, and Sloan subjects readers to bits of her act, an abysmal routine lamenting the pitfalls of being a cop's mate. Forsaking all suspense, Sloan hands us Tolstoy in the second chapter. Worse, while Bliss is good for a few quiet chuckles, his wife is relentlessly, mindnumbingly unfunny. Sloan offers a handful of decent lines, an agreeably subtle notion of pathos and no apparent ability to sustain wit beyond the first few punchlines or plot beyond the third chapter. (Aug.)