CALLED BY A PANTHER

Albert Samson, Indianapolis's most likably raffish private eye (Out of Season, etc.), returns after a too-long sabbatical to take on two cases: tailing socialite Charlotte Vivien for her possessive, marital-minded protÇgÇ, tame poet Quentin Quayle (who begins by asking Samson to vet his story about his fictional wife being murdered—a device to clear the way for the nuptials), and—more important— locating a bomb stolen from the Scum Front, a gang of toothless environmental terrorists, before its new owners depart from Scum Front protocol by blowing it up. The cases merge in a predictable but highly satisfying way, but not before Samson sneezes in the fingerprint powder at Mrs. Vivien's murder party, goes public with a cable TV ad that brings an armed fruitcake to his office, and gets fingered as a terrorist by his old buddy Captain Jerry Miller. Despite an oddly inconclusive ending, a good time is had by all, especially smart-talking, dumb-acting Samson and his readers.