PLOT OR PREMISE

Devlin Tracy is a claims investigator working for an insurance company. The VP gives him a case to investigate — a friend of the President of the company is in a sanatorium, and one of the other patients changed their beneficiary on their insurance policy before they died, and the doctor at the sanatorium got the winfall. The President is afraid for his friend, that he’ll be pressured to do the same, and wants Trace to make sure there’s nothing weird going on.

WHAT I LIKED

Warren Murphy was also creator of several other series, and while some of those were kind of pulp-style, this one is a full “standard” novel. Wise-cracking, determined, but not always the fastest to figure things out. Trace works hard, keeps poking until something shakes loose, and then grabs on and won’t let go until whatever scheme falls apart. All the elements of the series are here — drinking like a fish, sleeping with suspects, wearing a little frog pin that records conversations, and a bit of a blundering style that worms his way into lots of situations.  » Read the rest