Now he's up to his gabardine-covered knees in a case involving blackmail, treachery, and pornography - and with puppets, yet. It seems that the puppeteers of the kid-vid show Playground Pals have been getting raunchy and worse during down-time and in out-takes. Now someone's swiped the footage and threatens to upload it to the Web - embarrassing one and all and destroying the show - unless the producers cough up a million in cash. What do they do?

They hire Ingalls, who naturally comes accompanied by Stephanie Constantino, his smart, if mouthy, gal Friday. Then a dead body turns up and maybe it's not so funny any more.

Well, actually, it is. As is the sub-plot consisting of three women all claiming ownership of the same lost necklace. All this, plus a running inquiry (if that's the right word) about the nature of the human self.

This, the sequel to last year's Drop Dead, My Lovely, has been called, by a wise man writing for Booklist, "a sophisticated, very funny pastiche," and by some idiot for Kirkus Reviews (who obviously didn't understand what he or she was reading), "gratingly arch."

Just published in hardcover by NAL.