JUMP moves author Tim Maleeny in a new and intriguing direction. Already critically acclaimed for his popular Cape Weathers series, Maleeny’s first stand-alone work is a bit grittier and sexier, combining classic whodunit elements with crime caper attitudes to create a book that is part Leonard, part Westlake, and all Maleeny.

JUMP is firmly set in Maleeny’s San Francisco, with the action almost equally divided between the uneasy streets of the Mission District and the edge of downtown. It is in the latter area that a death occurs --- the untimely but welcome demise of Ed Lowry, one of the city’s most despised landlords. Lowry’s departure from this side of the veil is occasioned by his 20-story fall from the top floor of his apartment building. If he jumped, it’s a suicide; if he was pushed, it’s a murder.

Sam McGowan, a newly retired San Francisco police detective, is one of Lowry’s top floor tenants, who is still going through the motions of life some two years after losing his wife Marie to cancer. Danny Rodriguez, McGowan’s former partner, is assigned to investigate Lowry’s death and enlists McGowan’s reluctant assistance to interview potential suspects --- McGowan’s neighbors on the 20th floor --- to see if anyone had a motive for sending Lowry plummeting to his death.

McGowan discovers early on that just about all of them, including himself, had experienced a run-in of one sort or another with the unpopular Lowry. He also finds that they are a mixed and interesting bag of characters: a feisty seasoned citizen and her fitness-obsessed beau; a brother team of entrepreneurs who are selling more than sandwiches through their food service business; a low-budget movie producer; two young ladies with an extremely interesting website; and, most significantly for McGowan, a jazz chanteuse who gently entices him back to the land of the living.

McGowan’s investigation soon dovetails with one of his former cases, which involved a San Francisco drug kingpin whose tentacles reach into McGowan’s apartment building. The two have an old score to settle, and before JUMP reaches its climax, alliances will shift, secrets will be revealed, and McGowan, retirement notwithstanding, will determine whether Lowry’s death was an accident, suicide, or murder.

Maleeny has always peppered his stories with a mix of quirky characters, but he takes this practice to new heights with JUMP. He strikes a perfect balance between the odd and the believable, keeping the weirdness factor under control while making each and every character, from the apartment security guard to a pair of ill-fated, hapless hit men, memorable and interesting. One of my favorite elements, however, is stylistic in nature. Maleeny ties the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next, even as he jumps scenes, if you will, in the cinematic sense. This takes a great deal of work, but his level of tradecraft is such that he makes it look easy.

From beginning to end, JUMP goes down smoother than an Irish coffee at the Buena Vista while providing the same kick, and then some. Don’t miss this one.