Just a Corpse at Twilight

Returning after Hard Rain and an eight-year absence are the author's retired-still quirkily honorable and often misbehaving-Amsterdam cops, Grijpstra and de Gier. Responding to de Gier's trans-Atlantic call for help, Grijpstra leaves the cozy embrace of his mistress, Nellie, for a daunting journey to a small coastal island in Maine where his former partner has gone to seek solitude and wisdom (sometimes with the help of illegal substances) and is being blackmailed for having pushed a local woman, his sometime lover, over a cliff to her death. Key to Grijpstra's investigation are a wealth of deftly etched secondary characters: Ishmael, his pilot to Jamestown, Maine, who also collects found art; a corrupt, bald sheriff called Hairy Harry; two down-and-out fishermen, Flash and Bad George; a waitress from Hawaii named Akiapola'au and her lover, Beth, owner of Beth's Diner; a bear; and a dog named Kathy Two, thought to be the reincarnation of Flash's mother (Kathy One). Overseeing the antic action like distant gods are the cops' former boss, the commissaris in Amsterdam and the local property holder, Bildah Farnsworth. More than one drug-running operation, a money-making scam of lesser proportion, gratuitous cruelty, venality, a Papuan rite of revenge and intelligent, unpredictable humor wrap up this narrative delight. (Oct.)