SOMEBODY'S SISTER

Derek Marlowe, of the Dandy in Aspic and other truffles, has now written a bruising thriller in the genre of that other Marlowe (Chandler's) or Sam Spade about Brackett who is as bitter as bile ever since the unexplained (here) events which took the life of his wife and left his partner Harry Kemble in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Brackett has never proved himself as Kemble's protege until now, when the death of a youngster -- just someone's sister as a cop says and just whose daughter? -- is killed on the Golden Gate Bridge, as will be a second passenger. But who is the third man? This is enormously exciting and enigmatic at the same time and written with a tough sophistication which is hard to beat.