The Elusive Mr. McCoy

Baker's newest (after Sisters of the Sari) is the ho-hum story of the titular Mr. McCoy%E2%80%94"the visual equivalent of Teflon, so unremarkable he is almost invisible%E2%80%94" and the undoing of his enormous web of lies. When McCoy collapses from an aneurysm, Jason Cheddick, a former police officer turned PI who happened to be nearby, discovers among his effects two wallets and sets of ID belonging to David and Eric McCoy. Through his subsequent investigation, Jason discovers that the unconscious man is married to two different women, Lesley McCoy and Kendra McCoy. Shocked by the revelation, the two wives team up with Jason to discover their shared husband's true identity, and parse his motives. Along the way, the trio unearths troublesome and surprising truths not only about the mysterious McCoy, but about themselves as well. While the main man's blandness is precisely that which enables him to mimic others and assume a plurality of aliases, it is also that which makes caring for him so difficult. This, combined with a clunky plot and a too-far-removed 3rd-person narration, slows down the tempo. (July)