Angustias is such an insignificant Puerto Rican hill town, that its police station contains only two cells--not nearly enough to hold all of the miscreants collected by Sheriff Luis Gonzalo in Steven Torres's second police procedural, Death in Precinct Puerto Rico. The troubles begin with a bar brawl, but soon escalate into homicide. Elena Maldonado has endured repeated abuse--first by her father, then by her husband, Marcos ("It was said that she had the spirit to fight back for a while but never enough body to hurt the men who attacked her"). However, the birth of her first child has finally convinced Elena to seek a divorce. When she's subsequently stabbed to death in her kitchen, and Marcos is found drunk, clutching a bloody knife, the case seems open and shut. Yet complications soon arise. The decedent allegedly had a boyfriend--perhaps the same mystery man who attacked an elderly cop left to guard the crime scene. Marcos has his own secrets: Elena's baby may not also be his; nor is Marcos the impecunious layabout his neighbors presume. And even as Gonzalo untangles the circumstances of this slaying, more blood is shed when Elena's father attacks Marcos with an ax, then turns the blade on his own throat.

Torres' predilection for action plotting, which hurt the credibility of his previous Gonzalo novel, Precinct Puerto Rico: Book One, is somewhat better balanced here with character development. Suspects in the Maldonado case are more fully sketched than most of Angustias's cops, but none receives as much attention as Gonzalo. Boasting 26 years as sheriff, and with a wife who's now hoping somehow to adopt Elena's orphaned boy, he must mete out justice without alienating his often eccentric countryfolk. The sheriff is a bit too clever in the end at sorting out the greed and antipathy behind Elena's demise. Still, it's his warmth and imperfections that make this otherwise standard procedural engaging. --J. Kingston Pierce

Genre: Mystery