The Turquoise Tattoo

In Jacobs's ( Relative Risk ) promising mystery debut, spunky PI Devon MacDonald has a personal reason for trying to help her client, Dr. Benjamin Levy. MacDonald has lost her husband and son in an accident, and Levy's child is dying of leukemia. Neither Levy nor his wife is a suitable donor for a bone marrow transplant, but Levy donated sperm when he was a medical student, and if a child was born through artificial insemination, perhaps the half-sibling could provide a match. Though MacDonald does locate a child Levy fathered, he proves to be the son of Gilbert Hoffman, a member of the Aryan Supremacy Party, whose cohorts wear a turquoise tattooed on their wrists. Myra Hoffman has never told her brutal and violent husband that he isn't Tyler's natural father; if he learns that the father is Jewish, Myra and the boy will be in danger. The Levys surreptitiously visit Hoffman, and when shortly afterward he turns up dead, Levy is arrested. Although the dialogue occasionally is stilted and the murderer easily spotted, the book packs enough excitement and provocative questions to be well worth the reader's time. (Apr.)