Doin' Dirty

What Pulitzer-winning Texas editor and crime reporter Howard Swindle doesn't know about investigative reportage ain't much, as readers rightly inferred from his lauded 1999 debut novel, Jitter Joint. Its follow-up, Doin' Dirty, drives that fact closer to home. Its recently sober hero, Dallas homicide detective Jeb Quinlin, and his partner, Paul McCarren, investigate the rather grisly murder of a newly hired Yale graduate, the very well-connected investigative reporter Richmond Carlisle.

Right-thinking fingers are waggling knowingly toward the hugely wealthy, oil- and-what-all moguls, the Colters (specifically pater Clendon and sons Buck and Wade) with whom, or more accurately, near whom Quinlin inhabited Comanche Gap, Texas. But the deeper and closer to home Jeb digs, the more Colter-owned police and politicians he digs up. Interestingly enough, phone records indicate that the late Richmond Carlisle received six phone calls in nine days from FBI agent David Cartwright, whom Quinlin manages to confront after a protracted stakeout.

"You ever hear of the First Amendment?" Cartwright said. "It gives citizens the right to call anybody they want and say whatever they want."

"Guess you've heard of the Fifth Amendment? It says you don't have to make incriminating statements about yourself. And since you're talking law," Quinlin said, "there's also this deal called the Privacy Act, which says a Federal Agent could go to the pen for leaking shit to a reporter. Ring a bell, hoss?"

Maybe yes, maybe no, but with the help of intestinal fortitude and well- positioned insiders, Quinlin powers the too-short Doin' Dirty to a bang- up denouement (or, as they might say in Texas, coup de gras). One can only hope for more from Mr. Swindle--more of Texas, and by all means, much more of Quinlin. --Michael Hudson