JERRY KENNEALY – Polo in the Rough. Nick Polo #4. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1989. Speaking Volumes LLC, paperback, 2013.

   Nick Polo is yet another San Francisco PI. This, his fourth recorded case, takes him to Carmel as a bodyguard for a writer who specializes in uncovering dirt those in political power would rather stay buried. What he’s working on now involves the Shah of Iran.

   And all the millions of dollars that left the country with him. Kennealy is said to be a working PI himself, which may explain why the writing is occasionally straight from the cliché closet, while the detecting is strictly high-tech state-of-the-art: Computer databases, mail-order supply houses, and all.

   Unfortunately Polo is not much help to his client, and the ending is as flat as yesterday’s two-day-old beer.

–Reprinted from Mystery*File #15, September 1989, very slightly revised.


      The Nick Polo series —

1. Polo Solo (1987)
2. Polo Anyone? (1988)
3. Polo’s Ponies (1988)
4. Polo in the Rough (1989)
5. Polo’s Wild Card (1990)
6. Green With Envy (1991)
7. Special Delivery (1992)
8. Vintage Polo (1993)
9. Beggar’s Choice (1994)
10. All That Glitters (1997)
11. Polo’s Long Shot (2017)