Chief Reid Bennett and his super-sleuth dog tackle the crimes of Murphy's Harbor in this fairly sturdy, small-town tale, with quiet appeal (Kirkus Reviews).

In tiny Murphy's Harbour, where Reid Bennett serves as the oneaEURO'man police force, questions and dead bodies tend to pile up all at once. The morning starts with Reid chasing off a gang of threatening teens with a baseball bat. Minutes later, Reid learns that a bank robber might be headed his way looking for vengeance. But the day does not really start rolling until Reid finds a dead woman in the trunk of a waterlogged car. What follows is a fastaEURO'paced thriller involving rich lawyers, a questionable movie producer, and quite a few shifting identities. Everyone seems to be circling everyone else in a complicated orbit of sex and money. Can all these events be tied together?