Chalk Whispers

Readers may smile the first time Bishop describes a character as ""built like a bucket of gnarled fists."" But when he depicts another as ""having a face like a bucket of elbows,"" the warmed-over metaphor will function as a warning that this fourth Fey Croaker entry has lost the fire of previous installments. This time around, the female homicide lieutenant's world suffers from creative vapor lock--too much waggish cop banter; a cast of flat, predictable characters; and a plot that starts with a roar but then goes hoarse. The story opens with the tough-talking Croaker and her crew of five detectives being promoted to an elite homicide division within the Los Angeles Police Department. With the promotion, however, comes a sticky case--the torture murder of a prominent advocate for sexually abused children, whose father happens to be a California Supreme Court nominee and whose sister serves as an LAPD commissioner. As Fey's unit slowly makes progress, she finds herself haunted by the ghost of her father, a former cop and child molester who was mysteriously involved in circumstances, that now, 30 years later, seem related to her current investigation. It's a sordid, tangled case with several intriguing bypaths into the past, moving inexorably toward its conclusion with fervor but little surprise. Bishop (Tequila Mockingbird), a longtime LAPD detective currently specializing in sex crimes, writes convincingly about police procedures and the instincts of cops and crooks. Some of the relationships between characters here hint at a deeper dynamic, but then quickly pull back to their usual level, which all too often is comic caricature. Bishop is capable of better. (May)