Nightmare Syndrome

Marshall's 15th Yellowthread Street tale (after Inches) is both grim and goofy. As Hong Kong Detective Senior Inspector O'Yee ruminates on the British plan for ""Peaceful Transition of Authority"" to China, detectives Auden and Spencer are working to unstop the station's ancient plumbing. A wall collapses, revealing an unexploded ""ten-ton aerial bomb."" Spencer is rapturous at the opportunity to disarm the thing. Detective Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer is less enthusiastic about his task at hand: hunting the person, or thing, that commits murder by so scaring its victims that they claw their eyes out with their own hands. To understand this killer, Feiffer must revisit his father's death, which these present-day killings resemble. Added to this spectrum is O'Yee's personal confrontation with ""sleeping demons"" with ""clawlike hands,"" sharpened teeth and knives, the last of which the creatures plant firmly in O'Yee's desk, proving they are not apparitions. The murders take third place to the bomb disposal efforts and O'Yee's dilemma with the demons. The mayhem is occasionally funny, but overall, this mystery provides less sure footing than the slime-filled basement of the police station. (June)