A FOOL THERE WAS

DC Sukey Reynolds (Smokescreen, 2008, etc.) plays one of her famous hunches in linking a routine traffic fatality to a dismembered body washed up by the tide.

Returning from a Paris vacation, Sukey Reynolds and her friend DC Vicky Armstrong linger at a rest stop just long enough to see a suspicious-looking man in a Volvo try to hand a package to the driver of a white Peugeot. Minutes later the Volvo crashes, killing the driver, Toby Mayhew. Although the package, later recovered, contains only some harmless mementos, Sukey remains on alert. To distract her, DS Rathbone, who’s increasingly tetchy around Sukey, sends her to investigate the discovery of a disembodied head washed up on the beach. Soon enough other bits of the victim surface to identify her as Connie Gilbert, purchaser of the “Rambling Rose” undergarments found in a local charity bin. Meantime, disc jockey Jason Dobbie, Mayhew’s neighbor, is attacked by a thug with a Chinese symbol tattooed on his wrist. Since Connie was an Asian who lived over the Oriental Garden restaurant, it isn’t a big leap for Sukey to connect the cases. When Rathbone remains skeptical and grouchy, Sukey hooks up with her neighbor, freelance journalist Harry Matthews, who thinks a conversation he heard in the loo may be relevant. Though Harry takes Sukey seriously, his zest for investigation may put the pair in danger.

Sukey is as intuitive about crime as she is boneheaded about her personal affairs. In the end, though, her charm and stamina win out.