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Ledwidge, Michael

The Narrowback

London, Warner Books. £5.99.

Besides, we're all Irishmen here, right? All our luck is good.

Tom Farrell thinks he has planned and carried out the perfect heist on a ritzy hotel. All goes according to plan, well, nearly. One of his team decides he wants a bigger share of the loot than is his due. Tom Farrell shoots him. In fencing the goods, Farrell goes to an Albanian and in the process manages to show lack of respect to the godfather of the Albanian mob. He'd probably have got away with it, except that the team man he disposed of is a favourite son of the Bronx chapter of the IRA. And the IRA does not forgive those who killed a favourite son.

As the shooting begins, his team scatters. He isn't sure who is dead and who is alive. He seems to have trouble enough staying alive himself, as he tries to get to the loot.

The book is a cross between Dante's Inferno, conceived as a graduated conical funnel, to which successive categories of sinners are assigned, and the Purgatorio, with its groups of sinners (though not repentant). The Earthly Paradise is the locker which contains the loot. Will Farrell get to it and get away with it teases us all through the book.

Tom Farrell is an interesting personality. Is he a born loser? Is he more sinned against than sinning. He always manages to escape at the last moment, (there is a horrendous scene in which he is nailed to wood by the IRA), but he does not ever escape whole. As the book progresses, we have lost every semblance of sympathy for him and are no longer bothered by what might happen to him.

Michael Ledwidge was born in New York in 1970, the son of Irish parents. He lives in the Bronx.

Lewin, Jackie

Murder Flies Left Seat

New York, Avalon Books. 185 pp. No price stated.

Grace Beckmann loves her husband Albert, and her husband loves his Piper plane. So she has to put up with flying with him as pilot.

They arrive at the airport to take their plane for a spin, but it is gone. Grace should have been delighted, but the plane is found. Crashed. Dead pilot. The plane had been tampered with. Since they were supposed to take the plane and not the dead pilot, it was likely that the accident had been arranged for them. True to the tradition of the amateur sleuth, Grace rolls up her sleeves and begins the investigation.

She collects a lot of scuttlebutt, gossip and hearsay, but which of them are the smoke that lead to the real fire? Why, the fact that her husband ... no, no, no, mustn't tell.

This is very much good family entertainment. Grace's sons help. Her weekly tennis group help. Her husband tries to help (but he is in love with his replacement plane). The politicians are a suspicious lot. There is modern treasure to be found (but it's deadly).

A Denverite, Jackie Lewin promises that this is the first in a welcome new series.

Lewis, Roy

The Shape-Shifter and The Ghost Dancers

London, HarperCollins. 190 pp and 181 pp. £15.99 each.

The setting in these novels (there are now at least thirteen) is the Department of Museums and Antiquities, where the staff jockey for position and promotion. In every case, a particular dig or archaeological item is involved, and those with an interest in the past will delight in the archaeology and the story behind how the money is raised and the dig carried out. The staff is small but ambitious, and yet has to cooperate - in forwarding the archaeological work. So who solves the murders?

In The Shape-Shifter the site is connected with a war god, and the grievances today are so deep you might think they started in pre-history. In The Ghost Dancers the issue is raised, which excavations are worth having money poured into them. This time the boss himself gets murdered. The motif for the name is given at the end and will make you shudder, just as you thought you had enjoyed a British cosy.

The sleuth in every case is a member of staff, Arnold Landon. There is a policeman named DCI Culpeper, but Landon is the one who knows, understands, solves the cases and fails to get the ultimate promotion.

Roy Lewis is a Welshman, runs a business-training program with interests in the Far East after having been a college principal. In between he has managed a mere forty crime novels.