WALKING DEAD MAN

Another frenetic adventure for ex-nurse, now p.i. Edwina Crusoe (Cadaver, p. 218, etc.)—independently wealthy and married to Lieutenant Martin McIntyre of the New Haven police. Dresden- doll-like Theresa Whitlock has come to Edwina with a weird story of being persecuted by a dead man—one Thomas Riordan, a jeweler who'd been blown up in his Mercedes by hit-man Ricky Zimmerman, himself found murdered soon after. Then, leaving Edwina's office, a huge, unasked-for check left on her desk, Theresa is shot dead. So starts our heroine's involvement with Theresa's seemingly grief-stricken dentist husband Perry; her onetime partner in prostitution Jennifer Warren; Jennifer's pimp Tim DiNardis; Zimmerman's ferocious sister Carlotta, and Riordan's widow, the elegant Madalyn—except that Madalyn may not be a widow at all, since Riordan's dental records don't match the corpse in the bombed-out car. There's more, much more, before Theresa's unamazing murderer is nailed—all of it interspersed with the doings of Maxie the cat and Edwina's troubles with an aching tooth. Not in a class with root-canal work, but at times seeming as protracted.