A SLASH OF SCARLET

A second outing for p.i. Devon MacDonald (The Turquoise Tattoo), who works out of the Minnesota agency she shares with tough-talking, heart-of-gold Sam Sherman. Here, they've been hired to find one Brentwood Peters, who'd conned TV producer Charlotte Carboni and dress-shop owner Gwen Brody out of small fortunes with promises of love and marriage. Devon turns up a third victim- -teacher Abigail Thurston. And then Peters is located—living quietly with sister Theresa in his million-dollar beachfront house in California. Since Peters's clever scams involved nothing technically illegal, Devon sets up a clumsy trap that confronts him with his victims, hoping the threat of exposure will get their money back. The upshot is a violent end for Peters, a near-fatal attack on Devon, and the supposed suicide of one of the women tagged (by the police) as Peters's killer. Back in Minnesota, Devon has other ideas that culminate in another trap—and an unsurprising murderer. Cluttered, overplotted, mildly absorbing—without the punch or focus of Jacobs's first.