True story: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at one point despaired of writing Sherlock Holmes stories and tried to kill off his own golden goose. A blizzard of angry responses from the many Holmes fans, including Her Majesty the Queen, forced Doyle to find some entirely rational way of bringing his great coke-snorting detective back from the great beyond.

Readers of the Leo Waterman mysteries will be happy to know that G. M. Ford hasn't opted for anything so drastic in his new Frank Corso mystery series. There, right smack at the beginning of Fury, is our irascible Leo, roughly where he was at the end of the seventh novel in the series, The Deader the Better, pushing 40, still grinning like a moron. He'll probably be back as an important character in future installments of the new series.

Waterman's presence in Ford's new story is meant to send a specific message that even my literary tin ear can pick out: Rather than being a total break with the past, this new series represents a broadening of Ford's repertoire. Whereas the first series was a quirky first-person affair, the new one, told at a remove, is much more ambitious--more tiered, more intense, more far-reaching.

In a nut: It is Monday, and prisoner Walter Leroy Himes, who was convicted of the vicious ritual, serial, sexual murders of eight Seattle women in 1998 (the bodies were all found in Dumpsters: raped, brutalized, and marked with sheep tags on the corpses' ears) is about to have his ticket punched on Saturday. Thousands of angry string-him-up protesters are camped out at Walla Walla in anticipation of the demise of this monster, and good Governor Locke has made it clear that a commutation will not be forthcoming.

There is no question that Himes has issues--with women and with everybody else. He previously served time for child molestation. When a female photographer attempts to take a picture of him, he orders her to stop because she's "got big milkers." And, though he maintains he wasn't responsible for the serial killings ("I ain't killed them bitches"), suffice it to say he isn't choked up about it either. Himes is also poor, black, Southern, borderline retarded, and, as far as semi-retired, reclusive reporter/columnist Frank Corso is concerned, innocent of the murders.

All of which becomes a problem for Corso when the state's none-too-bright-herself chief witness in the Himes case, Leanne Samples, walks into the offices of his tabloidish newspaper, the Seattle Sun, and refuses to talk to anybody but him. What she has to say launches the intrepid reporter and his large goth photographer (and fictitious Stranger contributor), Meg Dougherty, on a week-long shot through the underbelly of Seattle.

The duo has to overcome not only a possible police cover-up--even with Samples' recantation, city hall, including the Schell-like linguini-spined mayor, is mys- teriously insistent that Himes should die--but also copycat murders and an angry public insistent that somebody'd better fry for this. The goals: Save Himes' life and boost the third-rate Sun's flagging prospects. Find the real killer. Try to stay out of jail in the process.

As Fury is a serious detective story and the first in a new series, the development of Frank Corso is important--and here Ford flails. Try as the author might, through backstory and dialogue, Corso simply doesn't come off as tough and mysterious as intended, and he is nowhere near as interesting as Leo Waterman. The slack is minimized by the presence of his assistant/love interest Dougherty and the driven owner/publisher of the struggling Sun, Natalie Van Der Hoven, and also by Ford's descriptive ability. But the reader is left with an exciting story without a compelling lead.

Having read much of Ford's Waterman series, I'm guessing that was intentional, all part of the whole enterprise of stretching himself. The gamble: Make the lead weaker and beef up the supporting cast to compensate. It was only a partial success, and I may be pulling my punches here lest Ford, like Doyle, get any funny ideas about eliminating the point of comparison.