ROGUE'S ISLES

In this corner is Frankie Falcone, bank president with a taste for virtual-reality sex and a personal interest in his depositors' finances, who's now missing with an awful lot of their money. In this corner (not moving much) is the late Frederick Simmons, Rhode Island banking commissioner, whose relations to Frankie were until recently equally personal. Let's not forget Tommy Flannery, mob-related speaker of the Rhode Island house and Frankie's partner in a cozy little cabal called the Business Club, or Liam O'Shea, who forsook the IRA to manage a strip joint and hire out for some freelance work. Finally (are we out of corners yet?), there's Michael Carolina, veteran TV reporter who's been thrown onto the case of Falcone and his missing millions the day he starts in his new job. Following the trail of money and murder will take Carolina on a crisply professional tour of Rhode Island's statehouse corridors and lesser fleshpots. A first novel that digs delicious dirt in a place whose political chicanery has long been an open secret to everybody but mystery writers. The slyest mystery here: How can all those nasty people fit in such a tiny state?