cover image Where Evil Sleeps

Where Evil Sleeps

Valerie Wilson Wesley. Putnam Publishing Group, $21.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-399-14145-4

Newark PI Tamara Hayle, last seen in Devil's Gonna Get Him, narrowly survives her Kingston, Jamaica, vacation despite her dangerous propensity for talking to strangers. Tamara only reluctantly accompanies giggly fellow tourist Lilah Love to a seedy bar with Lilah's husband, Sammy Lee, and a friend, Delaware Brown. There, after punks kill the lights, Sammy Lee and another man are murdered, and Tamara's bag, with credit cards and passport, is stolen. Basil Dupre, a ``naughty delight'' from Tamara's past, shows up and whisks her off to safety. Then Lilah appears and convinces Tamara to help her search for Lilah's share of a bundle of money, which, along with Tamara's bag, is in Delaware's rooms. Once there, Lilah promptly scoots, leaving Tamara to discover Delaware's bludgeoned corpse but, alas, not her passport--and without it she's trapped in a week of sun and fun so violent, it takes even more deaths to extricate her. (Aug.)