Bliss Jumps the Gun: A Lenny Bliss Mystery FROM THE PUBLISHER
Bliss's wife, Rachel, has a successful career as a stand-up comic (often using him for material), but for Bliss work is serious. A young off-Broadway actor has been found dead, on stage. Bliss's partner, Ward, is out of commission, reeling from having been shot by a druggie - and now an unstable young woman has disappeared with Bliss's gun.. "Bliss tries to track down Li-Jung while also investigating murder suspects. Why are the dead man's very rich parents acting strangely? What motives are the other members of the theater troupe hiding - the poetic Wolf, haunted by Vietnam memories, the director Katrina, with her obsessive videotaping; the seductive Constance, who harbors a secret and seems bent on distracting Bliss from his job?. "Meanwhile, Li-Jung, a walking time bomb of rage and loneliness, waits for the right moment to use her unexpected new power. When a nothing-to-lose ex-cop picks her up in his cab and sees a way to make some blackmail money, events come together quickly in a tense and satisfying conclusion.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
How much weirdness can befall one New York City cop? Stressed to the max, Lenny Bliss (first seen in Bliss) bungees off the Brooklyn Bridge late one night. For safety's sake, he hands his gun to Li-Jung, a tattooed cook and fellow jumper. She takes off with Bliss's gun and, unhappy with her past history with men, decides to take out a few of them. Bliss wants his gun back in a hurry. He also wants his partner, Ward, back on duty. Ward has caught a slug, and now seems filled with messianic fervor. Lenny's wife, Rachel, meanwhile, has forged a standup career making fun of her life with Lenny, and now Clint Eastwood wants to talk movie deals. Then there are the odd doings surrounding a bizarre avant-garde acting group. One young thespian is found murdered and the rest of the company seem intent on using his death as a means for improvisation. The young man has a prissy stepfather, a rich mother and a desirable (to Bliss, at least) aunt, all cavalierly unconcerned with his demise. Then a scriptwriter dies. And just as Lenny gets close to Li-Jung, she enters the fetid taxicab of DeWayne, a crooked ex-cop and a multiple loser--who has a plan. There's no shortage of offbeat crime yarns out there, but ones that work on every level are extremely rare. This one does. Lenny Bliss is a pip of a creation; he's goofy and likable and moral and confused all at once. His world is a sublimely silly and scary one that requires quick, if not always linear, thinking. Lenny Bliss is clearly the man for the job, and this is the book for the mystery reader who's looking for something fresh and strong. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
First introduced in Bliss, homicide detective Lenny Bliss suffers a moment of existential angst--handing his gun to a fellow chance-taker, he bungee jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge. Once back, he realizes that his gun has vanished with its "guardian." Busy investigating the murder of a young actor, he asks his recuperating partner to find his lost weapon. This creates a riveting, multilevel plot that switches from one quest to the other, from interrogating fatuous theater types as murder suspects to tracing the violent trail of the gun thief. An excellent police procedural, filled with grit and wry humor. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Memo to depressive NYPD officers: Next time you take a notion to bungee-jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, don't give your service revolver to a girl you've just met to hold so it doesn't fall into the East River. Detective Lenny Bliss (Bliss, 1996), distracted by Clint Eastwood's professional interest in his standup-comic wife Rachel, didn't follow this simple rule, and look where it got him. Not that he needs his piece to confront the suspects in the death of actor James Roderick, since most of James's colleagues at the Performance Warehouse are too busy acting weird to be very dangerous. And let's face it, it's not much of a mystery after all; Bliss's partner Ward could've solved it without breaking a sweat if he weren't taking some time off after trying to catch a bullet in his hand, and even Ward's straight-arrow stand-in Artie Barsamian, late of the Garment Center Task Force, has his hunches. No, the real problem is what's going to happen to Bliss's gun while lonely, frustrated prep chef Li-Jung is lugging it around the five boroughs wondering how it might cure her own depression. Sloan, with his inventive plot and constant changes of voice and perspective, lets you just deep enough into the minds of his loopy, all-too-human characters to keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering what in the world they're up to.
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