Soft Kiss

Philadelphia deserves a crime novelist who'll do her justice

by Char Vandermeer

A Killer's Kiss
By William Lashner
William Morrow
$24.95, 321 pp.

Her bags were packed. His were, too — right there under his eyes. Sure, William Lashner begins A Killer's Kiss, his seventh Victor Carl novel, with his usual bang, but this time around Victor seems a little tuckered out.

You hate Carl, Lashner's bumbling Philadelphia mob lawyer cum ambulance-chaser. You love him, too, and you hate yourself just a little for loving him. This time around, his former fiancée finds herself nearer to the maybe-loving end of the spectrum. A brunette bombshell with ruby red lips and gams up to there, she decides it's time to rekindle the old flame and comes knocking. Her little tap-tap-tap precedes the arrival of two homicide dicks who "weren't wearing fedoras, but they might as well have been," and just after her husband has been murdered.

Doing his best to channel Chandler, Hammett and scads of other pulp fiction scribes, Lashner stumbles like a drunk after his first half-dozen whiskeys. Which is to say he's a little unsteady, but can still touch his finger to his nose, recite the alphabet without a hitch and spin a decent yarn. While everything feels pretty darn good, the edges have gone a smidge fuzzy.

Once set into motion, the story speeds along nicely, zooming around corners, up blind hills and down narrow lanes. Lashner enjoys a good roller coaster and A Killer's Kiss doesn't disappoint, but it's missing the hard-boiled intensity, droll wit, attention to detail and sizzling plots that set his preceding six novels a cut above the rest of the detective fiction that lines bookstore shelves.

Besides, Philadelphia deserves a crime novelist who'll do her justice. Lashner drops token references to Rittenhouse Square and the delectable Amada, but if you substituted Central Park and Elaine's or Coit Tower and The French Laundry, it may as well have been set in New York or San Francisco. Philly's got character — plenty of them, in fact, and Victor Carl's previous outings have done them proud. Still, it seems that this time around Lashner shares more with suburban Lisa Scottoline than hard-edged Mickey Spillane.

William Lashner will read Tue., Aug. 28, 7:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-665-0716.