Sleep of the Innocent

Inspector John Sanders and his beloved fellow sleuth, Harriet Jeffries, return from vacation to find a murder witness and a cop missing and the police department in disarray

Focusing on Toronto police sergeant Rob Lucas, this third in a series ( Murder in Focus ) alternates between taut sleuthing and an intriguing love story. While the series' heroes, inspector John Sanders and photographer Harriet Jeffries, vacation in America, Lucas probes the shooting death of a corporate chairman. After he questions a young woman who had been in the mogul's apartment before the crime, he installs her in a motel and files a statement, which lists her current whereabouts. But when he returns the next day, she has fled, and two men have broken down her door and ransacked her room. His subsequent reports produce the same result: someone is going after the woman, and using police information to do so. Finally Lucas locates the witness, but refuses to bring her in until he can plug the leak in his department. Sanders returns and is assigned the case, with its missing detective and witness as well as a haphazard paper trail indicating a number of ignored but obvious suspects. Although Sanders investigates, it is Jeffries who identifies the culprits. Lucas's musings about the power of the police and his relationship with the witness elevate this tale well above the routine procedural.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Third in a series of sturdy police procedurals set in Toronto (Murder in a Good Cause, etc.), this one finding unassuming, quirky millionaire cop Rob Lucas totally involved with music student Annie Hunter, witness to the murder of entrepreneur Carl Neilson, a thoroughly nasty type shot to death by an equally nasty duo. Rob's attempts to hide his witness are constantly frustrated. The bad guys seem to know his every move, and Rob's convinced there's a leak in the department. After a second murder and a savage attack that Annie barely survives, Rob stops reporting in and devotes himself to nursing Annie, with whom he's now desperately in love. A rash stroke by the villain finally breaks the case.... A bit heavy on the romance, a bit weak on the scam behind it all, but moderately absorbing fare most of the way. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.