PAY OR PLAY

In his third outing, stuff-averse ex–LAPD detective Charlie Waldo is stuck with two cases he also doesn’t want.

Drug trafficker Don Q, who’s troubled Waldo’s sleep before, wants to know who the John Doe fished from a city fountain was and how he died. (And no, he’s not saying why he needs to know.) Waldo’s not interested, but Don Q makes him an offer he can’t refuse. So, in her own way, does his lover, private eye Lorena Nascimento, whose price for letting Waldo say he’s working for her so he can dig up information on the dead man everyone knew as the Professor is to help manage her latest client, foulmouthed TV judge Ida Mudge, who wants Lorena and her hapless operatives to dig up all the dirt they can on Immanuel Nickerson, the ex-lover who served as Mudge’s Bailiff Man until his contract wasn’t renewed and he filed suit for sexual harassment, and the four other men who’ve joined the suit. The first mystery isn’t interesting enough to be worth all the frustration, but the second, which eventually leads Waldo to reopen the case of Anthony Branch, a long-dead college friend of both Mudge and her high-powered lawyer, Fontella Davis, produces a steady stream of backstory complications, amusing episodes, and climactic surprises. A special highlight comes when Waldo’s determination not to own more than 100 objects is sorely tested: He has to come up with seven things to jettison on the spot in order to buy a six-pack of beer for Pete Conady, the former LAPD colleague whose help he sorely needs.

Who needs 101 possessions when you’ve got Waldo’s savvy, grit, and luck?