THE SHAPE OF FEAR

This second novel featuring L.A. police detective Isamu ""Iriah"" Ohara and his black partner Ted Washington is better by far than the first--Killer's Rights (1984). The murder of blackmailing Tak Shimizu, seemingly by three different assailants, intensifies the already hostile feelings in a Japanese/white working-class neighborhood. Bar-owner Joe Flynn, unemployed auto-worker Bill Stark, mail-order bride Midori Walker and her macho husband, Duke, all would have had strong motives for killing Shimizu, whose Japanese Mafia connections weren't too happy with him either. He also seems to have underestimated the guile of Jody, his latest teen-age pickup. Ohara and Washington work hard at running down every lead while, at the same time, minor violence and vandalism threaten the peace of the neighborhood. There are four more deaths before Ohara's fine-tuned body and sharp intelligence produce a viable solution. Solid procedural slightly hampered by a tendency to ramble and by some flat-footed prose.