Tom Corcoran Air Dance Iguana

Air Dance Iguana

Tom Corcoran

Dunne, Dec 2005, $24.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0312291337

His on and off lover, Monroe County Sheriff Department Detective Bobbi Lewis, hires freelance photographer Alex Rutledge to take shots at the Little Torch Key crime scene where Kansas Jack Mason was murdered hanging from a davit. Twenty miles away in Marathon, another corpse, that of Milton Navarre perhaps of Pensacola, was hanging from a davit too.

Alex is a bit confused, as he is the only person to have seen both apparently related crime scenes; he wonders why Sheriff Liska had two different cops checking each homicide. The prime suspect is Alex's brother Timothy, who he has not seen in seven years, but has now returned. He now has to peel him off the streets of Key West. Though Alex believes Tim is a loser, he refuses to accept that his sibling would kill anyone; not even the mean streets of Cleveland Heights could do that to him. He begins to make enquiries, poking for the connection between the victims, which soon leads him back to a 1970's scam from around the time he first arrived to live in Key West.

The latest Rutledge mystery (see OCTOPUS ALIBI) captures the essence of life (and in this case death) on the Keys, not just Key West. Alex drives the storyline from the moment he ignores the first o'dark call, visits two related murder scenes, picks up his brother, and finally confronts the killer who has a gun aimed at him. Like Alex, fans will wonder what's going on as Tom Corcoran provides a zany solid investigative tale.

Harriet Klausner