Liar's poker /

Harry Garnish is a fiftiesh private detective working for an agency run by one Bridget O'Toole, a nun who took over the job when her father had a stroke. It's not always a comfortable working relationship: Harry carries a lot of scars from his own Catholic education, and Bridget, well, she is a nun. With their Mutt-and-Jeff banter providing a genuine comic backdrop, Harry is hired by stuffy professor Barry Browder to investigate the Sethians, an off-center religious group with whom Barry's wife, Nancy, has become infatuated. Browder is worried that a forthcoming academic appointment may be jeopardized if scandal--by way of the Sethians--touches his wife. (As it turns out, it's actually Harry who touches Browder's wife.) The case takes a more sinister turn when a young college student who passed information to Harry is killed. Some laughs, a decent plot, and great Chicago atmosphere--imagine a hard-boiled shamus trying to cheer himself up by admiring the Marshall Fields Christmas windows--will have readers eagerly awaiting Harry and Bridget's next caper. ~--Wes Lukowsky

Short on plot, the fourth Harry Garnish mystery (after Murder Among Friends ) tries too hard to be long on moxie. Garrulous Harry, who works at former nun Bridget O'Toole's Chicago detective agency, visits the Sethian Center in South Bend, Ind., to investigate its director, Father Steven Lee. The agency's client, Barry Browder, wants to know why his wife Nancy has been making huge contributions to the Center. In South Bend, Harry, who is pushing 50, is picked up by Lisa, a 20-something woman with whom he has a night of torrid sex. Returning to Chicago, he admits he found out nothing--in fact, he liked Lee, who knew from the outset that Harry was there to check him out. Then Nancy Browder is discovered comatose in a motel room with a dead college student named Billy, and her daughter Andrea turns out to be the mysterious Lisa . Did Nancy and Billy try to kill themselves? What part did the Sethians and/or Lisa play? Harry's self-destructive behavior and self-pity over his dissolving relationship with live-in girlfriend Janie grow boring and depressing long before he finds the answers to these questions. ( June ) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A barely coherent new case for Chicago's warmhearted, foulmouthed p.i. Harry Garnish (The Frog King, 1990, etc.), who works for sensible ex-nun Bridget O'Toole. Here, Professor Barry Browder of Northrop College wants them to investigate a religious group--the Sethians--headed by Father Steven Lee. Browder's wife has been giving them a lot of time and money, and Browder, up for a prestigious new job, wants no hitches. But what a can of worms is opened up with this seemingly routine assignment! Before it's over, Harry has been unfaithful to his dearly loved ex-prostitute housemate Janie; Father Steve is dead; so are Nancy and likable student Billy Donner. Meanwhile, there are illegal aliens; a prostitution ring; incest, insanity and corruption in high places. Through it all runs Harry's tedious, self-pitying, obscenity-ridden stream of thought, adding to the general confusion. An amiable, undisciplined hodgepodge. Time for Harry to clean up his act.