BLOOD SUGAR

Revived adolescent passion triggers the downfall of a Long Island policeman who's been walking the straight and narrow for 30 years. Homicide detective Joe LaLuna's careful climb to the top levels of his suburban New York police department begins to derail with the death of wealthy businessman and cocaine aficionado Milton Wright, the husband of LaLuna's high-school sweetheart Audrey. Milt expired in the absence of his wife but in the presence of an automatic milking machine that he had put to uses for which the machine was by no means intended. It takes dipsomaniac medical- examiner Sharon Slabb, who has a bit of a crush on Joe, two autopsies to prove that Mr. Wright's death, while not the result of a dairy accident, was still not natural. Someone injected Milt's eyeball with an overdose of insulin. Joe's questioning of the suspects begins with Audrey, who is every bit as beautiful as she was decades ago. The detective, whose marriage to a sad, unlovely creature has been of exemplary faithfulness, is unable to resist the revival of youthful lust—to the disgust of his longtime partner, Winky Dink Hraska, and the detriment of his investigation. At the very moment Joe and Audrey reconnect, Joe's wife is found dead. The detective becomes the prime suspect. A first novel and a good one. DeFilippi, who spent four years in the military police corps, serves up suburban police procedures with style.