Dirty Money

January 3, 2000
In his sixth adventure, Nashville PI Harry Denton departs the country-music scene for the casinos of Reno, Nev., where his ex-girlfriend, forensic pathologist Dr. Marsha Helms, is about to give birth to their child. On his way to see Marsha, Harry is mugged by two thugs and winds up in the hospital under the care and flirtation of nurse Kelly Graham, but it's not long before he's with Marsha in Reno, where Federal Agent Shaky Jake Shalinsky persuades him to go undercover at a brothel as part of a money-laundering investigation. The feds already own the brothel, Mustang Ranch, and have secured an inside operative--a dominatrix named Raven--who holds a CD filled with evidence. In his role as the house's handyman, Harry visits Raven en chambre. An hour later, Raven is found murdered, and Harry is the prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Harry must find the real murderer, all while trying to resolve his romantic and paternal entanglements. Though Womack's (Murder Manuel, etc.) prose often has a nice lilt ("As I drove out I-80 east into the black hole of the night desert, the lights of Reno burned behind me so brightly, I had to skew the rearview mirror"), the far-fetched plot and Harry's awkward interactions with women never quite convince.