The tone of Elmore Leonard's latest mystery ["LaBrava"] is dry and mordant, the action well paced and the voices of the riffraff convincing. I do not know if Mr. Leonard has captured the real Miami Beach in the pastel seediness of the place he describes, but his depiction is entirely convincing and should entice readers to be manipulated and led through an intricate maze.

Joseph LaBrava is the conventional omnicompetent, angst-ridden former agent. After too many months protecting Bess Truman from her piano parlor, he has left the Secret Service to take photographs of aged Jewish ladies sitting on the porches and Latin hustlers sauntering through the shadows of the Floridian Grand Concourse. (Is anyone writing about a American detective who is happily married?)

LaBrava finds himself photographing the principals of two seemingly separate extortion schemes. (p. 12)

LaBrava has been trained to observe—to sit endlessly inside the...