City of Tiny Lights

British author Neate's comic mystery introduces an intriguing hero, Tommy Akhtar, a Ugandan-Indian London PI, whose résumé includes a stint with the mujahideen in Afghanistan. When a hooker hires Akhtar to find a missing friend and colleague, he gets caught up in a larger drama involving a murdered MP and the murky doings of terrorists and various intelligence agencies. After the energy and frantic momentum of the opening scenes, the pace slows as the plot becomes a little too convoluted for its own good. More seriously, with the recent bombings in the London Underground still fresh in the public mind, some may find Neate's efforts at humor and satire to be premature. While Neate may not be in Kinky Friedman's class as a humorist or prose stylist, this book should appeal to Kinkster fans. Neate's novel Twelve Bar Blues won the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award. (Apr.)