Astride a Pink Horse

Greer takes a break from his well-crafted CJ Floyd series (First of State, etc.) with this so-so post–cold war mystery. When the body of retired African-American Air Force Master Sgt. Thurmond Giles is found hanging by ankle chains in an abandoned missile silo near Wheatland, Wyo., wealthy, ambitious Freddy Dames, publisher of the Web’s Digital Registry News, assigns reporter Elgin “Cozy” Coseia to the story. Maj. Bernadette Cameron, an ex-fighter pilot, investigates the security breach involved. Giles’s dual expertise in nuclear-missile warheads and seducing women provides avenues to explore, as does the possibility that Giles’s murder was a hate crime. Among the suspects are antinuke protesters, including WWII U.S. internment camp survivor Kimiko Takata and her 42-year-old cousin, Rikia, who likes to re-enact WWII air battles with model airplanes. Bernadette and Cozy click for a climactic chase after which the plot creaks to an unsatisfying denouement. (Mar.)