Homemade Sin

The third appearance of Callahan Garrity, the quondam PI and owner of the House Mouse cleaning service who was last seen in Every Crooked Nanny , is a page-turner. When her cousin Patti McNair is shot to death in her new Lexus near the Garden Homes project in Atlanta, Callahan refuses to believe it was a senseless murder resulting from a random robbery. Learning that things may have been amiss in Patti's marriage to successful, secretive attorney Bruce, Callahan employs her clue-ferreting skills to stay ahead of the official investigation. She tracks an allegedly wayward priest, Bruce's Dixie mob clients and a crack-dealing gang leader before figuring out the identities of the bad guys and barely escaping with her life from a confrontation in a cemetery. While Trocheck captures more of the geography than the texture of Atlanta and seems to limit African American characters to the roles of domestics, gang lords and project-dwellers, Callahan, still dealing with breast cancer and living with longtime lover Mac, remains a gutsy '90s heroine. (July)