LAIR OF THE LIZARD

In a fourth outing, Tony Lowell, photographer/p.i. (Night of the Panther, 1997, etc.), doting daddy that he is, succumbs to twitchy daughter Ariel’s blandishments and leaves Florida’s Gulf Coast, where he has been snugly content, for Santa Fe. There—before you can say —culture shock——he grows perfectly miserable. What could be making a Nervous Nellie out of Ariel? Well, it seems that she, who marches to all manner of different New Age drummers, has intuited that a friend of hers is in trouble. Since Lowell is a papa for whom daughterly pouting carries the force of command, he hops a plane. And, of course, it turns out that Ariel is correct: Alicia Sandoval is being stalked by her former husband, mean and mad Danny Lopez. Still, everyone in Santa Fe—including the Sandoval family, the police force, and an incredibly insensitive array of other locals—regards Danny as not much more than slightly wild. Never mind that on various occasions he has publicly humiliated Alicia, beaten her, sent her to the hospital, and finally raped her. The prevailing attitude: these things happen, and Lowell, “the outsider Anglo dude,” just doesn’t get it. Ethnic tradition, he’s told, supports a man’s right to monitor his woman’s behavior. Then suddenly Alicia’s on the run again, with Danny running after her (wielding his switchblade). Now, as Danny’s about to become homicidal, Lowell at last snags Santa Fe’s attention. But still, unfortunately, there’s not much here to snag a reader’s beyond an assembly-line sleuth and humdrum story.