On the Nickel: A Jack Liffey Mystery

Shannon's solid 12th Jack Liffey mystery finds Liffey, whose specialty is locating lost children, pretty lost himself. The accident he suffered in 2009's Palos Verdes Blue, the previous entry, has left him without the use of his legs or his vocal cords and dependent on teenage daughter Maeve and unofficial wife Gloria Ramirez, an LAPD sergeant. Maeve involves all three of them in a search for Conor Lewis, a16-year-old runaway, that begins in "the Nickel," L.A.'s skid row. The precariousness of skid row life collides with the greed and ambition of developers as a decrepit hotel becomes a battleground between three old tenants clinging to their rights and a pair of ruthless thugs determined to remove them. When Maeve winds up caught in the middle, Liffey tries desperately to overcome his handicaps to save her. Shannon's characters are often almost comically exaggerated, but it's easy to root for the Liffey family to succeed. An appendix lists the author's sources for life on the Nickel. (July)