Shane Scully revisits his troubled past as a foster child in bestseller Cannell's slightly more plausible than usual ninth novel to feature the LAPD detective (after On the Grind). Scully and his attractive wife, Alexa, the acting commander of the LAPD's detective division, are looking forward to a two-week vacation in Hawaii. Then Scully hears the shocking news that Walter Dix, the head of Huntington House Group Home, where the policeman spent time in his youth, has blown his head off with a shotgun. Since Scully hadn't kept in touch with his former mentor, he's surprised to learn Dix left a note designating him a pallbearer. The other pallbearers at Dix's funeral, fellow alums of Huntington House, also doubt the official suicide verdict and join Scully in an effort to find the truth. Cannell telegraphs a lot of his plot developments and could've done a better job to make his hero distinctive, but series fans should be satisfied. 7-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Walter Pop Dix was the director of Huntington House, an orphanage and halfway house for children in between foster homes. He was a surrogate father to hundreds of troubled kids, among them Shane Scully of the LAPD. Dix was also a surfer, and among the few fond memories Scully has of his childhood are the early-morning surf sessions with Dix at Huntington Beach. Scully had lost touch with his mentor, though, until word arrives that Dix has committed suicide. In his papers, Dix names Scully, along with five other former residents of the home, as his preferred pallbearers. The six concur that Dix would never have committed suicide, and Scully reluctantly agrees to look into the already-closed investigation. The case drags Scully and his ragtag team into the brutal world of professional mixed martial arts fighting and into an elaborate embezzlement scheme involving Huntington House and several other child-care facilities. Cannell, a television producer (The A-Team and The Rockford Files, among others), has written 15 increasingly popular crime novels. The latest Scully caper is at times bogged down by a shaky plot, but it's redeemed by the raw emotion of six adults who will forever see themselves as orphans coming to terms with their past and repaying the man who gave them the courage to face the world.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2010 Booklist