Once a Crooked Man

In this comedy thriller, written and performed by television actor McCallum, the hero is an actor based in Manhattan named Harry Murphy. Harry overhears gangsters Sal and Enzo Bruschetti plotting the assassination of a Londoner named Villiers. When he can’t reach the intended victim by phone to warn him, big-hearted Harry uses his last paycheck to fly to England. He foils the hit but winds up in between the gun sights of the Bruschettis and Villiers. Worse yet, he is forced by British detective sergeants Ivan Supinsky and Lizzie Caldwell to act as bait to catch the criminals. McCallum is effective when giving voice to his creations, going American for the Manhattanites, upper-class Brit for Villiers and his wife, adding a bit of a Russian growl for Ivan, and a brash, sexy cockney for Lizzie. But when using his own familiar delivery, complete with faint Scottish burr, for the descriptive passages, he’s unemotional to the point of sounding bored, an approach that works best as counterpoint during the novel’s somewhat jarring scenes of violence and sex. A Minotaur hardcover. (Jan.)