Nils Shapiro, yes, a Jewish private eye living in Minneapolis, is asked by the Edina police department to assist in the investigation of a murdered housewife whose body and entire house are smothered in vacuum cleaner dust. Detective Shapiro comes across as a caricature of every other hard-boiled investigator: he's snarky, has trouble with women, drinks, lives in a crap-hole of an apartment, and is a loner in addition to being lonely. Moreover, the author's detailed descriptions of Minneapolis are not terribly original -- it's really cold and snowy -- and excessive: it seems like every pothole is worth mentioning. Nevertheless, the mystery of who killed the housewife, why, and how they managed to fill an entire ranch house with enough dust to obliterate any useful evidence is actually quite good. Goldman is originally a television writer and he puts his skills to work to keep the book's action moving forward with compelling urgency. He has two more books in the series and I'll probably read another.
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