Pay or Play

Despite his ex-lover’s best efforts to lure him back into her life and her detective agency, Waldo is firmly committed to his new eco-obsessive lifestyle in a cabin in California’s San Jacinto mountains. Until that is, Don Q, a Latino gangster well-known to Waldo, ‘convinces’ him to investigate a body found in a mini-mall fountain. Waldo is not thrilled, but he’s not going to argue even though he cannot fathom Q’s interest in the corpse. Then a second case lands in his lap. Judge Ida Mudge, an African American TV personality whose raucous courtroom program is the best show ever in Waldo’s view, persuades him to investigate blackmail threats hinting at her involvement in the ‘accidental’ death thirty years ago of a Black college student during a hazing prank. Waldo works both cases, interacting with the homeless around the shopping mall, hunting the pledge captains from three decades ago, and getting run down. Waldo’s sleuthing, and life, is circumscribed by the ridiculous lengths to which he goes to stay true to his environmental dictates. Amusing to begin with, this wears thin after a while. Nonetheless, Pay or Play is an entertaining mystery that will keep readers guessing to the end.