Soft Money Book

If someone happens to ask you where the really important, groundbreaking new work in the mystery field is being done, point them toward this wonderfully rich novel by K.J.A. Wishnia. The novel manages to be exciting and funny, as well as convincingly multicultural, proenvironmentalist, and strongly feminist. Filomena Buscarsela, a sharp and sexy Ecuadorian-born NYPD detective with a degree in literature, first appeared in 1997 in Wishnia's self-published 23 Shades of Black. Now, in her second outing, Fil has left the cop shop "thanks to a premature mid-life crisis helped along by a full-blown drinking and drugging habit." She now has a beautiful, bright 18-month-old daughter, Antonia, the result of a short but hot fling with a stud named Raul. To pay for food, rent, and day care, the overqualified Fil is working for an environmental foundation where she winds up learning to stamp envelopes. But old habits die hard: she's also looking into the murder of a local merchant, killed by voodoo-obsessed Dominican hoodlums. Meanwhile, a particularly nasty eco-villain from her first adventure is cooking the books at the foundation, and Fil investigates this con artist too. Wishnia, who has an Ecuadorian wife and two children, has obviously watched them very closely: the best parts of the book involve Fil either taking Antonia with her on investigative jaunts or feeling bad because she has to leave her behind. He also has a perfect ear for female urban angst, and the wit to disarm it: "I take Antonia to the park. On the way, one of life's little inconveniences broadcasts his desire to copulate incessantly with me. I decline." --Dick AdlerRead More