From Publishers Weekly
The sixth Nick Polo story (after Polo's Wild Card ) again blends the PI's wry commentary on modern society--especially as experienced in San Francisco--with fast-paced adventure to create a thoroughly entertaining romp. Polo is accosted by a fellow investigator who accuses him of planting a bug on a client's phone. Since Polo didn't have anything to do with the tap, he visits electronic surveillance buddy John Henning, only to find his friend dead, apparently a suicide. Convinced that staunch Catholic Henning would not have killed himself, Polo is puzzled. When he is named executor of Henning's estate and discovers four emeralds in a safe deposit box, he is even more confused. Backtracking from a receipt in Henning's effects, the sleuth goes in search of the wife of a financially troubled San Francisco jeweler--and again comes upon a body. Ignored by skeptical police, Polo continues to investigate, turning up Colombian gem smugglers and a host of nasty customers in the process.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Despite a hilarious interlude in which he struggles to outdrink a villainous, self-contained secretary, this is an unusually sober case for San Francisco p.i. Nick Polo--maybe because he's investigating the death of a friend, fellow shamus John Henning, whose wiretap on businessman George Rochard (at the request of Sharon Rochard, R.I.P.) set him, and now Nick, on the trail of some smuggled Colombian emeralds and a trio of very determined foreign visitors (one Colombian, two Samoans). But if this case isn't as funny as Polo's Wild Card (1990), it's more neatly turned: Polo actually spends most of his time detecting, and the killer is surprisingly surprising. A fine entry in this modest, underrated series. --
Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
