Hook: A Meg Gillis Crime Novel

In her second outing (after 1998's Bait), Meg Gillis risks her life to discover if she unwittingly abetted the murder a charismatic foreigner. The action begins when Meg, a headstrong ex-cop working in home security, serves divorce papers to an abusive husband as a favor to her business partner, Mike Johnson. But after meeting the elegant Rudolfo de la Pe a, Meg believes his denial that he beat his wife, and when Rudolfo is found dead the next day, an apparent suicide, Meg wonders if she was used to set him up. After she's followed by two thugs, she decides to investigate with the help of Mike and her overprotective boyfriend, Beverly Hills Police Sgt. Joe Reilly. Songer revs up the suspense as Meg takes chances searching for evidence, but Meg's efforts are for naught--the police have already given the information she's looking for to Joe and Mike. Meg finally figures out the motive for Rudolfo's death when she connects it with the politics of the dead man's native Argentina and the thousands of Argentines who vanished during the military dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s. Despite its fast action, Songer's novel falters. Songer chooses to evoke Los Angeles by laying out a street map (""He... took Olive Avenue south through Burbank to where Olive turns into Barham Boulevard there by Riverside Drive... and we caught the 101 South"") and her staccato dialogue grows repetitious. Most seriously, the novel's pacing is off: Meg places herself in harm's way to find information easily obtained by picking up the telephone, and there are several monotonous travel scenes. In the end, Hook will snare readers, but not firmly. (Dec.)