Jump

March 9, 2009
Former San Francisco homicide detective Sam McGowan sees his plans for a peaceful early retirement go out the window around the same time as his despicable landlord, setting in motion the Rube Goldberg works of this wacky stand-alone from Maleeny, author of 2007's Stealing the Dragon
and two other Cape Weathers investigations. Guilted into unofficial sleuthing by his ex-partner, who's the cop probing the fatal plunge, Sam quickly discovers no dearth of suspects among his quirky neighbors on the 20th floor—and a hotbed of criminal activity. Between the slacker brothers whose sandwich business serves as a distribution network for a Mexican drug lord, the two glamazons putting themselves through school with X-rated activities, a mysterious torch singer and the B-movie director who may be a blackmailer, we're firmly on darkly comic terra Hiaasen. Fast-paced and funny, this is a perfectly blended cocktail of escapism, with or without the beach towel.

A diverse group of apartment dwellers in San Francisco suddenly learns that their landlord has jumped to his death. Sam, a widower and recently retired cop, finds himself trying to solve the crime by getting to know his fellow tenants. The story's characters give life to a different and sometimes-funny police procedural, but it's narrator Tom Weiner's voices that keep listeners engaged. Weiner sounds like a cast of 20 as he navigates amid gravelly voiced Sam and his neighbors: two female African-American entrepreneurs, a no-nonsense elderly woman, a middle-aged singer, and, best of all, two drug-dealing but likable brothers. There are also assorted villains and minor characters, all creatively narrated. Never once does Weiner confuse a voice, despite the characters' varied ages, vocal personalities, and ethnicities. M.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine