Karp, at his wife’s urging, takes on O’Toole’s case to try and get him reinstated in part to atone for not having aided O‘Toole’s older brother, Fred, who had some years earlier suffered a similar fate. Fred had become so despondent at the loss of his career that he committed suicide. Marlene goes to Idaho to get some preliminary work done for her husband while he deals with a few minor matters in New York.

Marlene meets a Basque sheepherder, Eugenio Santacristina, whose daughter attends the same school at which O’Toole coaches. Maria has been missing for some time now and her father believes that she has been killed or abducted. Marlene pledges her support to this lonely man, who, though he is resigned to the probability that his daughter is dead, needs to see her physical remains to complete his grieving process.

Meanwhile, Butch and Marlene’s daughter, Lucy has moved in with her cowboy boyfriend in New Mexico. She has been delving into the local Indian culture and has convinced John Jojola to enhance her spiritualistic understanding of the tribe by taking a potion of Peyote (a known hallucinogen). Under the influence of this drug, Lucy experiences some weird dreams. She is sure these dreams have significance, but can’t relate them to her present life. Lucy is also extremely gifted in her language abilities, having the ability to know and understand virtually every language in today’s world. A colleague of her father’s, S.P. Jaxon, knowing of Lucy’s talent, asks her help in translating a short conversation in an unknown language. Lucy identifies the language as Celtic, but a strange dialect that she doesn’t understand. Curious, she offers to take the tape of the conversation to a friend who she believes can help.

Several other subplots are also occurring at the same time which keeps the action going in different venues constantly. Although it would appear that most of the subplots will interconnect eventually, that is not necessarily the case. One is a definite candidate for a future book.

Malice is the nineteenth in series of books by Robert Tannenbaum featuring Butch Karp and his wife Marlene Ciampi. This offering follows closely on the heels of their previous outing in Counterplay. It is disconcerting for a reader unfamiliar with Counterplay to read the first hundred pages due to references made to the back story. The author does not make the mistake of rehashing old news, but there are obviously feeling and relationships that were developed in Counterplay that are discussed without preamble in Malice.

There are numerous excursions in Malice to explain such diverse subjects as the Basque region of Spain, the culture and history of the Isle of Man, and Aryan racism in the United States. While each of these topics has some bearing on the plot the extent to which the author explores them is not necessary for the plot to move forward and will not appeal to readers who are not interested in picking up bits and pieces of arcane knowledge. However, the information junkie should be in hog heaven.

Tannenbaum has produced some interesting characters but daughter Lucy is not one of them. She is so precocious as to be beyond the realm of believability. I realize that there are those people who have a knack for language and pick up other tongues readily, but Lucy can speak and understand any language without any prior knowledge. It hardly seems likely or even possible given the diversity of language groups.

Tannenbaum lends insight into several different occupations. I especially enjoyed his quip about the most dangerous time in a journalist’s life was prior to publication. Because after publication there was nothing left as a secret. He also understands both sides of the courtroom and just how to go about getting the jurors’ attention. His discussions of the terms patriotism, terrorism, justice, malice, and revenge and the minute space which separates the concepts are noteworthy.

Though there is an abundance of relevant information within the covers of this book, the reader is often forced to wade through bits that are not germane to the story or are awkward references to the previous book in the series. This results in a much longer than necessary book.

--Andy Plonka