When last seen alive /

The flash and funk of L.A. is vivid, and the cast of characters quirky and memorable, in black PI Aaron Gunner's fifth adventure (It's Not a Pretty Sight, 1996, etc.). Once again, women mean trouble for Gunner. First, Connie Everson, wife of city councilman Gil Everson, hires him to take pictures of her husband committing adultery. Then beautiful Yolanda McCreary asks him to find her missing brother, Elroy Covington, who told her of meeting Gunner in Washington, D.C., at the Million Man March. The two tasks and the two women compete for Gunner's attention as both cases become intensely personal and deadly. Following Covington's cold trail leads Gunner to an old enemy called Barber Jack (so named for his favorite weapon, a deadly eight-inch straight razor) and to a sinister group called "The Defenders of the Bloodline," who want to rid the world of Uncle Toms. Getting the goods on Everson seems easier until an unusual prenuptial agreement forces Gunner to delve deeper into the councilman's family matters. Deaths accumulate and then coalesce into a pattern as Haywood continues to deepen this impressive series, melding issues and plots in entertaining mysteries. (Jan.) FYI: Haywood also writes the mystery series featuring Joe and Dottie Loudermilk, who live and travel in their Airstream trailer. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A young Los Angeles woman wants series star Aaron Gunner to locate her brother, who never returned from the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Gunner soon finds himself tangling with black extremists and the FBI. Realistic and compelling. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Elroy Covington came a long way to disappear--all the way from the Million Man March in Washington to a run-down motel in Hollywood--but his sister, Yolanda McCreary, is convinced that even though LAPD Missing Persons has given up the search, Aaron Gunner can find Covington. Aaron, already busy trying to photograph L.A. city councilman Gil Everson with one of the limping prostitutes his wife Connie is convinced he favors, is none too eager to take on the case. Even so, he hands the snoop job off to aspiring teenaged photographer Sly Cribbs in order to look for Covington himself--and before you know it, somebody's tried to kill both Sly and Aaron and (talk about coincidence) steal crucial photos from both of them. Aaron's sure the councilman's beefy bodyguard could tell him all about the attack on the kid, but he thinks something still doesn't jibe, and he's right: The tug-of-war between the Eversons is more complicated than he can see. And the search for Covington leads Aaron (It's Not a Pretty Sight, 1996, etc.) into even deeper trouble with the Defenders of the Bloodline, a black-supremacist answer to the Ku Klux Klan bent on executing all the Uncle Toms the KKK might have missed on their last trip through town, and with a five-year-old newspaper scandal that won't stay dead. Ingenious but slapdash in the details, with Aaron continuing as one of the most maddeningly intuitive detectives since Nancy Drew. Start reading for the plot, and you'll stay, as usual, for the flavorsome African-American backgrounds. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.