The Skintight Shroud

Seen before in The Burning Season , Joe Hannibal is an old-fashioned private eye who smokes cigarettes, drinks bourbon, beds beautiful dames and hews to an old-fashioned code of ethics. That code is sorely threatened when Hannibal is asked by elegant 1950s TV star Henry Foxwood to probe the possible link between the murders of two porn-video stars. Foxwood is Hannibal's client of record, but it's soon clear that certain ``concerned individuals'' behind Foxwood's ``troupe'' are Mafia. Grudgingly taking the case, in short order Hannibal receives threats from a capo'sital unnec. per web. nasty nephew, kills a thug and maims a pimp (both in self-defense) and finds himself becoming emotionally involved with the capo's beautiful British mistress. Before Hannibal names the not-too-surprising killer, a third murder and some engaging characters (including the Norman Rockwell farm couple who host the porn-shoots) maintain our interest in this readable mystery from the editor of Hardboiled magazine. (Dec.)