Devil's Food

February 2, 1997
New Jersey parole officer Loretta Kovacs has seen better times: "I'm fat; I'm single; my career is in the toilet." Once an assistant warden, she's fallen to the bottom rung in the Department of CorrectionsDthe "Jump Squad," which traces and retrieves parole violators. Loretta's boss gives her one week to save her job by finding Martha Lee Spooner, an accomplished money-launderer and all-around grifter, who's skipped. Expert at moving money, Martha Lee is working a big scam against WeightAway, a Florida fat farm. Loretta and her new partner, Frank Marvelli, soon discover that Martha Lee's biker sister-in-law, Ricky, has put out a contract on Martha Lee, who'd ratted on her husband to save her own skin. Loretta and Frank hie off to Florida (Frank reluctantly, since his wife, Rene, is dying of cancer). But by the time they reach WeightAway, Martha Lee has turned the hit man, Torpedo Joe Pickett, into her ally. The IRS is sniffing around the fat farm, and Torpedo Joe is hired by Martha to off a suspected informer. There is no informer at WeightAway, but there is Loretta, who's taking undercover saunas in pursuit of Martha. Complications and plot turns multiply until the final dizzying resolution. Readers will, pardon the expression, eat this up. The plot crackles and so does the dialogue (Frank to an IRS investigator: "You ever hear of `anal retentive?' It's in the dictionary under `Fed' "). In Loretta and Frank, Bruno (Bad Apple, etc.) has created characters appealing enough to run for a series.