Bloody Ten

Last seen in The Fundamentals of Murder, the appealing investigative team of brainy, paraplegic Bishop Francis X. Regan and his wisecracking Jewish assistant, PI Davey Goldman, takes on murder and the mob in midsummer Manhattan. After attending a party with the cast of an off-off-Broadway musical, Davey agrees to help one of the actors, Jim Kearney. Jim needs information on the possibly shady background of his long-lost half-brother, Nick, who is the offspring of their father's previously secret first marriage. Nick has recently surfaced and asked Jim for a large loan to cover his debts to the mob. The next day Nick is discovered shot to death with Jim's gun. Tracing leads, Davey moves from Greenwich Village haunts to the mansions of St. Cloud, Minn., where Jim and Nick's father, head of a pharmaceutical conglomerate, lives. Love deals out a list of suspects that strains even the bishop's 220 IQ. A well-developed cast, tightly structured plot and cleverly placed details end with the bishop's final questions in an 11th-hour, nail-biting conclusion. (Apr.)