Skim Deep

MWA Grand Master Collins’s disappointing ninth crime novel featuring professional thief Nolan picks up six months after the events of 1987’s Spree. Now retired, Nolan is enjoying running his supper club in Moline, Iowa, a far cry from his days tangling with the Chicago mafia. To further his efforts toward respectability, Nolan and Sherry, his decades-younger girlfriend, abruptly elope to Vegas to be married in the casino hotel run by an old friend, Harry Bellows. Nolan can’t even wander a casino without alerting the suspicions of security, who rough him up believing he’s casing the place. Someone at the casino realizes this gives him the perfect scapegoat for his plan to steal the monthly skim, with the mob none the wiser. Predictably, the plan involves kidnapping Nolan and Sherry. Some awkwardly written sex scenes may appeal to middle-aged male fantasies. This long in the tooth homage to Donald Westlake’s Parker series is strictly for Nolan fans. (Dec.)

This review has been updated to remove a spoiler.