Danny Boyle is a summer cop in his hometown of Sea Haven on the Jersey shore. (Check out the clever map of Sea Haven on the author’s website. Danny’s devotion to duty is secondary to his interest in “the college kids who hang out on the boardwalk and the young babes I meet over oysters and brewskis down at The Sand Bar.”

He’s partnered with John Ceepak, an older cop who’s been recruited by Police Chief Cosgrove. Ceepak was with the Army Military Police, the last posting of his career in Iraq. Ceepak is a 24/7 cop who spends his spare time reading about forensics and interesting cases. He lives The Code. Since his duty in Iraq, Ceepak no longer drives so part of Danny’s responsibility is driving his partner. Ceepak is a man of regular habits. Danny meets him each morning at The Pancake Place where Ceepak has the same breakfast and sits at the same table every day.

On this Saturday there has been a bicycle theft, and Ceepak and Danny are about to swing by to check it out but then Danny sees a young girl covered in blood running down the street. Hysterical, she tells them “the crazy man” killed her father. She and her father had sneaked in to the amusement park in the early morning and were sitting on the Tilt-A-Whirl when a man came up and shot her father. She is Ashley Hart; her father is “bazillionaire” businessman Reginald Hart, who’s like Donald Trump only richer and with better hair.

Investigation quickly focuses on a homeless man who wears Timblerland boots regardless of the summer weather and hangs out on the beach near the amusement park. The mayor and police chief are eager to wrap up the case because of the loss of business at the summer resort, but Ceepak is not so quick to judgment. And then Ashley disappears ... kidnapped.

Narrated in the first-person by Danny, Tilt A Whirl is part police procedural, part buddy tale, part comedy, part drama. As in many other odd-couple detective pairings such as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Joe Friday and Bill Gannon, John Ceepak and Danny Boyle are opposite personality types. Danny Boyle is laid-back, going with the flow. John Ceepak is no-nonsense, devoted to duty. Their evolving relationship is every bit as interesting as the well-crafted mystery.

Tilt A Whirl is the author’s debut mystery, but his previous writing experience includes advertising, screenplays, and TV scripts. Smoothly written, it reads like the work of an experienced author. Its skillful melding of stock elements provides both an entertaining and challenging mystery.

I debated whether to award it four or five stars and came down on the higher side because this one stuck with me. Several weeks passed between my reading the book and starting the review. In similar situations, that has usually required rereading the book because I had forgotten most of the details in the interim. In this case, however, I remembered the whole thing, and that’s the sign of a keeper.

Don’t let the hot pink chick-lit-wannabe jacket cover put you off. Behind it lurks a first-rate work with broad appeal. A series with this much promise deserves a large audience. And there’s more good news – another Ceepak/Doyle book coming out in 2006. I’ll be looking for it.

--Lesley Dunlap