Cinderella

Cinderella has stolen a bunch of cocaine Florida and is being chased by a couple private detectives and a couple of thugs representing the owners of the cocaine. When a private detective is killed in the hunt, Matthew Hope gets involved. McBain -- Evan Hunter -- is a master plotter, and creator of dialog, and in this case a lot the feel of Florida from Elmore Leonard novels. A good, fast read.

Good grief, what a convoluted plot about several factions going after what turns out to be the same woman for different reasons. When I read something this convoluted but am nonetheless enjoying it, I will just go with it and try not to keep up with who is doing what to whom and why.

Matt Hope is a lawyer whose friend Otto is killed while on a case. Otto has done work for Matt and Matt feels obligated to try to find out why Otto was killed. Enter the two factions of drug dealers, the boat owner from whom the young woman stole an $8K Rolex, the clean up guy for the cubano mob in Calusa, FL from whom she steals 4kilos of 90% pure cocaine ... and just for fun, throw in the philandering husband Otto was following for a client (but not for show more the reason you might suspect) and Matt's ex-wife who decides after two years they should be having sex again. Convoluted and crazy. And a lot of fun. show less

The Calusa, FL of Ed McBain's Matthew Hope novels isn't as fully fleshed out as the ersatz New York of his 87th Precinct novels. And the investigations conducted by attorney Matthew Hope certainly aren't as rigorous as the by-the-book investigations performed by the 87th Precinct detectives. But in the end, the bad guys get caught.
This was a good read (though perhaps slightly below McBain's stellar average) with an important moral. It's not a smart idea to steal a lot of cocaine from a ruthless mobster. Just in case you're tempted to do so.