The Iris Deception

When Patty McLeod walks into Jack Ross's office, he is certain of two things--that both his retirement from his work as a private investigator and his carefully constructed new life are over. For Patty McLeod has come back to hire him to finish a job he did for her 18 years ago. Ross, whose escapades as a private investigator were earlier chronicled in The Desert Look and The Big Silence , is a colorful, old-fashioned man whose love of solitude and the desert are perfectly portrayed by Schopen's dry, desolate prose. The case that Patty wants Ross to reopen involves the unsolved disappearance of her then teenage daughter, Heather. Out of guilt and because of his own secret yearnings, Ross reluctantly accepts. During his investigation, he encounters another private eye, Martha Reedy, and together they search for Heather in the seedy world of porno film. What ensues is a mesmerizing tale that leads Ross and Martha through layers of greed, murder and deception--all revolving around a dying man's ranch and the secret it harbors. This is a fine addition for readers already committed to Ross and an equally good introduction for tyros. (Oct.)