THE SUITCASE KILLINGS

One day Nick Hadley-Jones is hopelessly in debt to unsavory Tony Gallo; the next day he's working off his debt by muling cocaine from Germany to Tony's London club, the Red Slipper; the day after that, after a slight departure from Tony's meticulous plan, he's warming a seat at the wedding of a virtual stranger. What's next for Nick? Nothing at all, except for being carried by six good men and true after he's been shot down on his way out of Fiona Anstey Hepworth's reception. Hired by Nick's remote but stricken father, a famous surgeon, to find out what's become of his missing boy, private inquiry agent John Samson (Samson and the Greek Delilah, 1996) finds Nick no further off than the nearest newspaper headline, and agrees to compete with the coppers to bring the killer (irritated Tony? a rival criminal? the father of one of Tony's many conquests?) to book. If it weren't for this element of competition, in fact, there wouldn't be a story, since Samson gets all the breaks that the police, asking the same witnesses the same questions, don't, and only Samson's reluctance to share his findings with the authorities keeps this low-level case from ending much earlier. Pleasantly undemanding fare from a veteran author who could turn out cases like this one in his sleep.