DEADMAN

An improbably rambunctious sequel to the death-soaked Hit on the House (1993) that finds mob daughter Helen Sedlacek and her lover Joe Service celebrating their execution of Detroit gang leader Carmine Busoni (revenge for Helen's slain father, Big Sid) in Butte, Montana, which isn't quite far enough to discourage contract killers Mario Soper—handily dispatched by Helen after he shoots Joe and leaves him for dead—or Heather, who combines business with pleasure by finagling her way into the home of Joe's nurse, Cate Yoder, whom she's smitten with. Also on hand, after a few phone calls, are Detroit's finest, Sgt. Fang Mulheisen—whom his old pal, Silver County prosecutor Gianni Antoni, is trying to lure into a job with the Northern Rim Task Force to investigate rumors of an Asian crime invasion—and Detroit's scummiest, Carmine's successor Humphrey DiEbola, and Victor Echeverria, a Colombian businessman searching for the $5 million he gave to Carmine to launder. Wonder whether Helen knows where the money is? Mulheisen and his creator are obviously having the time of their lives in this knockabout farce, and so will readers who can appreciate the ways Jackson's comedy is deepened by his characters' brutality.