Chutes and Adders

This sharp-edged and wry mystery takes off quickly when an employee of Robin Light's marginally profitable pet store in Syracuse, N.Y., dies painfully after opening a package containing a highly poisonous and aggressive snake. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the most venomous creatures in Block's debut novel are the two-legged kind. Robin, recently widowed when her criminally inclined husband Murphy died of a cocaine overdose, becomes prime suspect in the killing when $50,000 is found hidden away in the store, leading the thoroughly nasty cops to assume that Murphy was trading in protected animals. When Robin finds another $20,000 hidden in her apartment, she begins a search for the killer that leads her into bizarre interviews with a street thug (who later winds up beaten into a coma), a neighbor (who ends up dead, pushed off his balcony) and a sadistic zookeeper (who wisely remains silent); a smarmy lawyer and a sinister landlord add spice and complications. What seems to tie all these disparate folk together is the Latin American religion of Santeria--truly an odd practice to be popping up in bitterly cold upstate New York. Robin is an engaging, if stubborn and reckless, amateur sleuth whom readers will look forward to meeting again. (Aug . )