TROPICAL HEAT

Miller abandons his San Francisco setting and Vietnam vet-turned-lawyer Claude McCutcheon series (Causes of Action, 1999, etc.) for a sexy mystery thriller set in Hopewell, Virginia.

In 1942, Augustus George Farrell, born with one kidney and so ineligible for the military, accepted the sheriff's post in Hopewell until his predecessor returned from overseas. The sheriff died on Iwo Jima, and now, in 1954, A. G. is still sheriff, still a bachelor, and has not returned to the University of Virginia for grad study in philosophy. Captain Martin Fitzgerald of nearby Fort Lee has been shot to death in his DeSoto at midnight near a Hopewell warehouse. His newly widowed wife, the magnolia-scented Theresa, remains quite dry-eyed when identifying her husband's body—perhaps because of the relentless July heat wave baking Hopewell? A.G. finds her erect nipples and fingers lingering on his, not to mention a glimpse of thigh, breathtakingly memorable throughout his day. (Cherry Coke, plenty of ice, please.) A.G.'s investigation at Fort Lee runs up against Major Williams, the ramrod provost marshall, who clearly has a private agenda. A.G. meets Theresa off-base and despite his plain girlfriend Delores begins to feel distinctly off-base toward the widow. After all, the poor thing's frightened and needs a friend. Is there some tie between the murder and the mysterious death of bootlegger Sam Brown's pregnant 15-year-old daughter? What about Fitzgerald's high-stakes gambling at poker? Was the captain actually going to dump Theresa for Wanda, wife of Pfc. Joseph Carbone, a motor pool mechanic? What about Theresa's flat-out seduction of A.G. in her warehouse apartment in Petersburg: Where will that lead? And what is Theresa's tie to the black sergeant who takes her to a black bar in Petersburg? But what can A.G. do, even if the worst is true, when her sweet breath washes over his face?

Rich swatches of the old James M. Cain, neatly done though hardly new.