Jacoby's First Case

Jacoby's First Case, marks the debut of a delightful new mystery writer and hero. Quentin Jacoby is a retired New York transit police living in co-op City in the Bronx and, at the age of 55, very tired of playing cards with 80 your old men. One night, at a local race way, one of his favorite haunts, he runs across a young girl in a dazed condition who first propositions him, then, when he gently turns her down, allows him to steer her safely home. The next day, the girl turns up missing-and Jacoby winds up involved with a young amateur detective who knows considerably more than he's telling, and an eminently reputable doctor with some eminently what disreputable sidelines, a jive talking operator named the Sheik, and an ever deepening puzzle of drugs, race fixing, prostitution-and murder. And Jacoby is the one who must put the pieces together. Jacoby is a tough-minded but philosophical, highly sympathetic new character who picks his way through the twists and turns of the case (and daily life) with a pleasing mixture of bemusement, skill, luck and knowledge of human nature."