ROBERT CRAIS – The Watchman. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, February 2007. Paperback reprint: Pocket Star, January 2008.

   Elvis Cole’s sidekick, Joe Pike, takes on the job of keeping a young L.A. socialite, Larkin Conner Barkley, from being killed after she is involved in a late night collision that lands her in the middle of an undercover federal investigation.

   Somebody in a very small group is leaking information about her various hiding places, and with that group including her father and FBI agents, Joe is very much on his own as he tries to keep one step ahead of the unknown assailants.

   This is a gripping page-turner, although Joe loses some of his mysterious charisma as he reveals some of his past and connects with the rebellious Larkin.

IAN RANKIN – The Naming of the Dead. Little Brown, hardcover, April 2007; reprint paperback: September 2008.

   Inspector Rebus is, perhaps, a year or so away from retirement, and he’s assigned to a very nonessential station, where he’ll be out of harm’s way, “harm” being his tendency to involve himself in cases in ways that rile his superiors and don’t make him the most popular DI among his colleagues.

   When a delegate to an international conference falls to his death, Rebus is assigned to what appears to be a suicide. However, he suspects it’s more than that, and while he’s trying to follow up on this case, he’s drawn into the investigation of murders of several sex offenders.

   This is a dense, well-coordinated procedural that was less satisfying for me than earlier novels in the series, but rewards some patient reading and willingness to follow the author through the maze of interlocking characters and plot threads.

ANNE PERRY – Dark Assassin. Ballantine Books, hardcover, March 2006; reprint paperback: February 2007.

   Another in the long series of William Monk novels, which I abandoned after he found solace in marriage and put to rest some of the ghosts that haunted him in his attempts to recover the memory of his past.

   Monk is now working for the river patrol and he and his men witness a argument that ends with the young couple falling to their deaths from a bridge. The investigation of what initially appears to be a suicide and a futile attempt by the young man to save his fiancee widens to include a threat to Metropolitan London from underground excavations for the subway system.

   A dour series that I find I still enjoy, peopled with characters from all levels of society and presenting a convincing portrait of Victorian London.