Police Captain Donovan has been invited by neighbor and scientist Francois Lauriat to observe his research on crows from atop a specially built treehouse in Central Park. Partly on a whim and partly to escape the nightly cries of his newborn, Donovan agrees to join Lauriat one Saturday evening.

Uneasy about the height, Donovan nevertheless climbs at dusk, and once up, appreciates the spectacular view and interesting, if somewhat noisy, crow neighbors. Male bonding via beer and conversation are the order of the evening until Lauriat pleads insomnia and leaves briefly for a late night stroll. When Donovan rises the next morning and gazes out, he spies a body at the edge of a nearby pond. So much for a casual weekend off.

The rest of Donovan’s Special Investigations Team shows up, including wisecracking Brooklynite Sergeant Moskowitz as well as Deputy Chief Pilchow who despises Donovan for both personal and professional reasons, and a rookie cop with an attitude. The victim died of multiple knife wounds and unfortunately, the time of death coincides with Lauriat’s midnight absence from the tree house. Donovan now has the unenviable task of considering an acquaintance as a murder suspect.

His hackles rise when he finds out Lauriat lied about at least one aspect of his absence, but Donovan can’t resolve such a mild scientist to such a vicious crime. The Team slowly gathers evidence from the trash found around the crime scene, and from conversations with nearby residents and visitors to the Park, but all leads seem to be deadends. Frustrated by the Team’s lack of progress, Donovan finally decides he needs to become one of the Park’s “residents” himself for a few days to solve this case and does so with some interesting results.

As a seasoned cop, Donovan has developed his own intuitive approach to crime solving. His conversations with his sergeant and the various suspects are entertaining and sharp, but his personal relationships are a little harder to sort out unless you’ve been a long time reader. Wife Marcy sounds as if she has an interesting story of her own, with her multiracial heritage, new child and blackbelt-ex-cop background, but she takes a back seat in this outing, appearing in only two or three scenes.

The supporting cast of characters are an interesting mix, including a rat scientist, rollerblading punks, a sixties poet and his sexually liberated teenaged daughter -- there’s even a wolf sighting. Easy to like, easy to read, take Murder In Central Park with you on your next business trip to New York City.

--K. W. Becker