El Chupacabra

Everyone loved Sy Blonstein. So said the rabbi at the memorial service after Sy wrapped his Buick around a bois d'arc tree. Between sips of Stoli, Sy’s widow tells Joshua Loeb, family friend and lawyer, that she wants to sue GM for $10 million because Sy’s airbag failed to open. Promising a painstaking investigation while he winds down Sy’s accounting practice, Loeb says to himself, At least she waited until after the funeral. Loeb’s investigation gets no help from the police. They are preoccupied with apprehending El Chupacabra, the popular name given to a vigilante who is taking drug dealers off the streets of Dallas by ripping out their hearts and eating them. La Boca Grande, a headline-grabbing city councilwoman, is threatening to rip out the police chief’s heart if he doesn’t get El Chupacabra off her streets. With the expert help of an on-parole car thief, Loeb finds enough evidence to be convinced that somebody didn’t love Sy after all. As Loeb’s digging takes him to a gentlemen’s club whose best customers are a meth-dealing skinhead gang, the investigation becomes more a pain in the butt than painstaking. Because all the real detectives are working the El Chupacabra cases Sy’s case gets assigned to Lana Turner, a desk jockey detective in auto crimes. She and Loeb get along about as well as a couple in a child custody fight until the Blonstein case and the El Chupacabra cases collide like Sy’s Buick and the bois d'arc tree.