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Cosin, Elizabeth, M.

Zen and the City of Angels

New York, St. Martin's Minotaur. 280 pp. US $23.95.

An old friend asks PI Zen, short for Zenaria, Moses (lost a lung to cancer but still puffs away at an occasional cigar) to search for a missing show dog called Noodles. Finding Noodles is easy enough, except that what the friend did not tell her, was that he himself was in deep, deep trouble. Zen is a loyal and faithful friend, as well as a tenacious sleuth. She decides to help her friend. She is assisted by her sometime partner Bobo (an interesting and unusual relationship) and this time around she meets and has another sort of relationship with a policeman called Brooks.

Before long Zen wakes up with bloodied hands in the basement of a home, a baseball bat and a bludgeoned corpse by her side. Comes the realization that both a famous killer and a policeman hate her so much, they will do anything to rid the world of her. The Chief of Police turns out to be crooked (so what else is new) and able to get at her through her new paramour. She clears her friend's name (but too late, in a scene that will tear at your heart), and she does preserve her own life, but at what a price!

Presumably, if this book is as realistic as it appears, the name given to Los Angeles is a misnomer.