A Good Way to Go: A Detective Inspector McLusky Novel

In British author Helton’s diverting third mystery featuring Det. Insp. Liam McLusky (after 2012’s Four Below), the Bristol police detective looks into the murder of an unidentified woman, whose body is found chained by the neck to a buoy in a canal lock. The discovery of another corpse adds to McLusky’s soaring stress levels, the result of trouble at work and a separation from his wife, Laura. In an attempt to give up cigarettes, he takes up eating candy bars, but ends up consuming both, sometimes at the same time, along with a healthy supply of comfort food, such as ready-made Indian meals and fish and chips. In a parallel plot line, Det. Insp. Kat Fairfield investigates a mysterious man who purloins women’s underwear for nefarious purposes. Helton’s knack for humor and the imperfections of humanity, both exemplified in the hapless, affable McLusky, winds up being far more interesting than the efforts to catch either the killer or the women’s clothes fetishist. (May)