THE LADY GODIVA MURDER

Cézanne Martin has had it rough—she made it through her rookie year as a Fort Worth, Tex., cop; survived a disastrous affair with a colleague who neglected to mention his unbalanced wife; and managed to see the silver lining in having crusty Roby Tyson, a longtime veteran of the force, as her partner. Yet her world is turned upside-down with the Lady Godiva case, where the lady in question is none other than the captain's daughter and Roby's secret lover. The murder turns cop against cop and all evidence points to the grief-stricken Roby. Cézanne is determined to clear her partner despite getting demoted to a desk job, having to work side by side with her ex-lover's vengeful wife and being forced into sessions with the department shrink ("A forty-five minute visit with Aden Whitelark... left her gnawing a hole inside her mouth"). While Moore (Constable's Run), a former cop and lawyer, knows the Texas justice system and writes credibly about its fools and foibles, she bombards the reader with ancillary subplots better saved for a subsequent outing. Nevertheless, the book is full of quirky characters, deft descriptions and razor sharp humor. And Cézanne is truly a work of art: a fiery mass of attitude, intelligence and barbed wit, haunted by a childhood best described as awful. Though facing an uncertain future after quietly earning a law degree, Cézanne has handily earned a spot among contemporary female crime solvers like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Garcia-Aguilera's Lupe Solano. (Dec.)