UNNATURAL JUSTICE

Lady Luck beams on Scotland’s favorite actor/tycoon/part-time private eye as he launches the seventh in this breezy series (Poisoned Cherries, 2003, etc.).

Oz Blackstone has always been irresistible to anyone of the female persuasion. It’s those eyes, those shoulders, that hard-guy persona that gets ’em. And now that he’s flourishing in the flicks, Oz finds himself catnip to an ever-enlarging audience in skirts. But these days he is unshakably monogamous—and a good thing, since Susie, his wife, suddenly needs the best he can give. Her company (she’s twice been named Scottish businesswoman of the year) has become the target of a very hostile takeover. It’s a situation fraught with peril, complicated by the secrecy surrounding the identity of the take-no-prisoners corporate marauder. Before many gambits have been ventured, however, Oz is convinced the deal is personal. Even more than her company, Susie herself is at risk, and so is Oz. Though he doesn’t know why payback has become the name of the game, he does know it behooves him to do unto others before they can do unto him. Never one for Marquis of Queensbury restraint, Oz honors a different rule: strike first, “kicking the other guy in the balls as hard as you can.”

The pace is brisk, sure enough, but Oz’s enthusiastic vigilantism will be offensive to some.