cover image Dead Ahead: A Mystery Introducing Nikki Trakos

Dead Ahead: A Mystery Introducing Nikki Trakos

Ruby Horansky. Scribner Book Company, $17.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-684-19229-1

This mystery debut, an unremarkable entry in the burgeoning field of mysteries featuring female detectives, introduces Junoesque Nikki Trakos of the NYPD. On her first homocide investigation, her chauvinistic chief gives Trakos three days to find the killer of a middle-aged loser shot to death in a desolate section of Brooklyn. Trakos is paired with Dave Lawton, a hotshot detective from the city's special homicide squad, to whom she is immediately attracted. Lawton is also involved in a bigger, more newsworthy case, however, so for the most part Trakos is on her own. Trakos has personal problems as well: her mother worries about her continuing spinsterhood; her troubled niece needs her at home. Her one clue leads to the beautiful, ungrieving widow of Barry Douglas, a wealthy businessman who has just died in the mysterious explosion of his boat. Pursuing both investigations, Trakos finally makes the connection between the two men and arrests the killer, but the reader has long since guessed the culprit's identity. Horansky's knowledge of the NYPD and of the city is clear, and Trakos is a feisty, appealing heroine, but the mystery is weighed down by a slow, simplistic plot and unconvincingly portrayed relationships. (Oct.)