Street Level
Florida PI Duncan Sloan is a lot less laid-back than the jacket copy on  this sassy, smart-talking thriller would have you believe. His style may be  casual, but his detecting skills are up to the job of tracking the lowlifes who  stole the sperm of a gay millionaire from a fertility clinic and put it into a  trailer-park babe who's dreaming of a big score when the baby is born.Author Bob Truluck, winner of the 1999 St. Martin's Press/PWA award for best  first private eye novel, is a worthy addition to the ranks of thriller writers who cover the same  scene. His sense of humor isn't quite as warped as Carl Hiaasen's and his  characters aren't quite as bizarre as Laurence Shames's, but he works the territory well  enough for  the reader to feel the heat and hear the bugs in the palmetto trees. And Sloan,  the womanizing dick with the sentimental soft side, is an interesting enough guy  who may grow into a popular recurring hero. Truluck has a deft hand with his  secondary characters, particularly Ike Pike, the aforementioned millionaire,  whose dreams of fatherhood are barely affected by the criminal tendencies of the  woman carrying his baby, and Steven Glass, Ike's partner, who's less than  thrilled about his lover's desire for a child. All the noirish details  are in place, and Sloan's knight-errant antecedents reach back almost as  far as beloved private eye Travis McGee. A nice addition to the genre,Street  Levelhas the feel of a first-in-a-series outing, with more of Sloan's  adventures already in the offing.--Jane Adams