First of all, I would like to note (with considerable pride) that there are a few review blurbs printed at the beginning of James Scott Bell’s Romeo’s World, the latest in his long-running Mike Romeo mystery series. And the very first one they use is one of mine, from this very blog, where I say that Mike Romeo is who I want to be when I get younger. This is most gratifying.

Oh, the book? You want to hear about the book too? Fine. Have it your way.

This time out, Mike is down at the beach with his new wife, Sophie, when they see a small plane crash into the ocean a little distance from shore. Mike sets out swimming and just manages to pull a young woman out of the wreckage before the plane sinks. He manages to get her to shore, and she’s in hysterics. She doesn’t want to be seen, she says. He and Sophie get her up to their house, and call a doctor for her. After the woman is cleared for health, she asks Mike to drive her to a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, then gets out and walks away.

Shortly after that, Mike is informed that the woman is dead, that she committed suicide. This makes him mad. The man who died in the plane crash was a successful real estate developer, an older man to whom she had been engaged to be married. Mike starts poking into his business, and finds plenty of secrets to be suspicious about. It goes on from there.

Mike Romeo is always fun – he’s a literate cage fighter, a seeker of beauty and virtue as well as justice. His employer and mentor, wheelchair-bound lawyer Ira Rosen, is especially fun to spend time with. I have to report that I saw the big plot twist coming, but still I fully enjoyed Romeo’s World and devoured it quickly.

Recommended, of course.