Don't come to Rhys Bowen's "Murphy's Law" expecting such tortured complexity. Don't even pick this book up if you can't stomach an old-time New York murder mystery with a plucky stage Colleen named Molly Murphy as its protagonist. ("You Irish could sweet-talk the hind leg off a donkey," Murphy is told at one point.) Molly is framed for murder in Ireland, and gets entangled in another killing after escaping to New York, where lovable cop Daniel Sullivan falls for her. The proceedings are pretty much what you'd expect - with a dash of decent historical detail, given the setting. If you can handle all this, there could be worse ways to spend an evening or two.

($22.95 / 224 pages / St. Martin's)