I’m still getting accustomed to Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Dubonnet novels, set in New Orleans. They’re not my usual kind of fare; I like my heroes to have a little more existential angst and shining armor on them. But the series is growing on me.

In Trick Question, Tubby gets a desperate plea for help from a fellow lawyer. That lawyer is working a murder case as a court-appointed advocate. His problem is that he’s a hopeless lush, and he’s done almost no prep work, and the trial is about to begin and the judge won’t postpone. Tubby’s a sucker for an old friend, and he hates the idea of a defendant getting railroaded, so he agrees to do the best he can in the few days available.

The defendant, Cletus Busters, is the janitor at a medical research facility. One night he opened a freezer door, and a man’s frozen body tipped out onto him. The body was that of a scientist who’d been using that laboratory. He had complained in the past about Cletus playing with the laboratory mice. Also, drugs stolen from the lab were found in Cletus’ apartment.

In addition, Tubby is doing some estate work for a young female boxer, and he gets a peek into the world of that rising sport.

The whole subject of women’s boxing gives me the willies, personally, so that was uncomfortable. But eventually (spoiler alert), Tubby comes over to my view, so that was OK.

Cletus the defendant turns out to be a voodoo practitioner, but that’s played mostly for laughs, so I didn’t mind that too much either.

Trick Question was entertaining. Still not exactly my cup of jambalaya, but I can see why people are fans. Only mild cautions for subject matter are in order.