JUMP

A homicide cop is lured out of retirement by a homicide close to home.

Ed Lowry, the landlord from hell, plunges to an unlamented death from the 20th floor of his San Francisco apartment building, and suddenly Sam McGowan is a working cop again. Sam’s 24-hour retirement certainly isn’t what he had in mind when he parted with badge and gun, but life—and murder—can be full of little surprises. Beset by political pressure, Danny Rodriguez, Sam’s former SFPD partner, is in serious need of a favor from a friend who also happens to be a tenant. So Sam reluctantly finds himself getting to know his neighbors, just as he would have done if he were still on the job. Or not exactly. Consider his relationship with Jill, the lovely jazz singer. Sam likes her more than he’s liked any woman since the death of his beloved Marie, and that makes him nervous. So do the antics of magnificently endowed apartment mates Shayla and Tamara, graduate students, sex kittens and Internet stars. The motley crew Sam gets to know as his investigation deepens have but one thing in common: They all hated their loathsome landlord.

If comedy is hard, comedy plus murder is even harder, and Maleeny (Greasing the Piñata, 2008, etc.) isn’t quite there yet.