The Fourth Victim
In this passable whodunit from Spinosa, the sequel toHose Monkey(2006), Joe Serpe and Bob Healy, ex-cops and former adversaries who are now in the oil-delivery business on Long Island, get on the trail of the Oilman Murderer. The Oilman's fourth victim, Rusty Monaco, like the previous three, is an oil truck driver, shot to death in an isolated area. Serpe and Healy soon find that Monaco, who was also an ex-cop, left behind a huge cache of cash that may be connected to a racially charged suspicious death in HarlemÂ several years earlier. Spinosa, the pseudonym of Shamus-winner Reed Farrel Coleman, adds a conventional love-interest for Healy, an African-American internal affairs officer who risks her professional standing by digging into the past.Â This installment, with its routine shoot-outs, corruption and twists, falls short of the standard set by Coleman's Moe Prager series (Soul Patch, etc.).(Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.