Characters Follow Oddball Dreams in Jackson’s Latest Novel

The crime novels of Jon A. Jackson, though satisfyingly self-contained, are parts of a continuing saga about a cop and the robbers of Motor City. Narrated with wry objectivity, these violent, darkly humorous, sometimes surreal tales usually center on “Fang” Mulheisen, a tenacious but oddly thoughtful (and at times wistful) police detective. The new Jackson work, “La Donna Detroit” (Atlantic Monthly, $24, 288 pages), is billed as “a Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery,” but Fang is only a secondary player.

The primary emphasis is on current crime boss Humphrey Di-Ebola who is, like all of the author’s characters, a provocative mixture of stereotype and counter-stereotype. As longtime readers of the series are aware, DiEbola was once known as the Fat Man, a rather typical, corpulent under-boss and enforcer for Don Carmine Busoni. When (in “A Hit on the House,” 1993) Carmine was dispatched by Helen Sedlacek, the vengeful daughter of one of his victims, DiEbola, as befitting a new boss of bosses, went on a self-improvement kick.

Thanks to a rather unique diet of hot peppers and a fondness for the writings of Machiavelli (whom he calls “Mac”), he reemerges in the new book as trim and contemplative, using his innate deviousness to escape both organized crime, which has lost its allure, and Mulheisen, who seems on the verge of connecting him to the death of Jimmy Hoffa. DiEbola has also grown amazingly forgiving. Not only does he pardon Helen for bumping off his old pal Carmine and stealing millions of dollars, he sets her up to be his successor. She’s eager to take over, but what she really wants is to turn DiEbola’s fake Cuban cigar operation into the real McCoy, with Detroit becoming the new mecca for Cuban stogies.

Everybody seems to be following an oddball dream in this highly entertaining, unpredictable novel. Fang fans may be a bit disappointed that he’s merely an observer this time out, but they can savor the anticipation of what’s in store for him in the next series entry, with Helen as the new Donna of Detroit and her paramour, Joe Service, as the man behind the throne. Service has been Mulheisen’s nemesis since “The Diehard,” the book that started the series in 1977.

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In Paul Bishop’s “Chalk Whispers” (Scribner’s, $24, 384 pages), the new Los Angeles police chief informs series lead Fey Croaker that not only has she made lieutenant, she and her disparate but fiercely loyal crew of detectives are being bumped up to the elite robbery-homicide division.

Since good news is short-lived in Croaker’s world, their first murder case turns into a political and personal nightmare. The victim, an advocate for sexually abused children, was the daughter of a state Supreme Court candidate and the sister of an LAPD commissioner. Worse yet, clues lead Croaker and company in two troubling directions. One is to the dead woman’s dad, who may have molested her as a child; the other is to Fey’s own father, a crooked cop and child molester in his own right, whose unlawful arrest of a militant decades ago has a bearing on the investigation.

It’s a twisty tale solidified by slices of authentic cop life and salted by squad-room dialogue that no doubt come from the author’s 23 years (and still counting) of LAPD service. Experience helps.

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In “The Empty Chair” (Simon & Schuster, $25, 411 pages), Jeffrey Deaver’s new adventure of quadriplegic-sleuth Lincoln Rhyme and his leg woman, Amelia Sachs, “empty” is the key word. The goodwill established by the original Rhyme novel, “The Bone Collector,” and diminished slightly by the less-good second, “The Devil’s Teardrop,” has now completely gone south. So have Rhyme and Sachs, who travel from Manhattan to North Carolina, where a medical center offers a high-risk surgical procedure to aid people with his condition.

It might have helped the suspense if he’d really gone under the knife. Instead, he’s detoured by a lawman’s request for help in saving two young women. They’ve been abducted by the apparently homicidal local loony, the Insect Boy. The addled teenager with a disturbing fondness for creepy crawlers is the author’s only original creation this time out. Rhyme’s mental gymnastics are strictly ho-hum, and the usually sensible Sachs has gone simple, for no apparent reason other than to fill pages, ignoring the advice of her mentor, Rhyme, and every one of her policewomanly instincts. She even mistakenly shoots and kills an officer of the law, a little bit of naughtiness that forces Deaver to twist the plot past the breaking point to let her off the hook.

There are the usual red herrings, the one whopper of a surprise about two-thirds of the way through, the fake ending and the inevitable Rhyme-in-jeopardy real ending that are now recognized as part of the author’s oddly rigid formula. It’s all too predictable, and the manipulation is so obvious, not even pacing can disguise it.

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The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’Gorman on audio books.