With Six You Get Wally: A John Bekker Mystery

Edgar-finalist Lamanda tickles the funny bone and touches the heart strings in his fifth John Bekker mystery (after 2015’s This Side of Midnight). The former police detective, who’s also a former alcoholic, takes on a babysitting job for an adult problem child, Wally Sample. Sample, a compulsive gambler and a mathematical whiz, stands to inherit $10 million and partnership in the Sample Iced Tea company, headquartered in White Plains, N.Y., if he can prove he hasn’t gambled for 30 days prior to his 40th birthday. Wally’s a handful, and Bekker decides to shape him up with the aid of his grown daughter, Regan, and Father Thomas, a psychiatrist at a treatment facility owned by the Catholic Church. Wally’s debts to various loan sharks and his five estranged siblings are roadblocks to be overcome, and when Wally’s house blows up, it’s apparent that someone will kill to keep him from claiming his inheritance. Bekker has to put his own life on the line in the desperate climax to this entertaining yarn. [em](Oct.) [/em]