Summer Fiction

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A BODY TO DIE FOR. AUTHOR - KATE WHITE WARNER BOOKS HARDCOVERS @ $ 34.95 CAN. A BOOK REVIEW BY ALEX GRANT

The Editor-In-Chief of "Cosmopolitan" monthly has written her second mystery novel featuring her alter-ego "Bailey Weggins", true-crime reporter and amateur sleuth at large.

And a thoroughly good soul who grates upon the nerves with her supposedly winning combination of obstinacy and perkiness. This time around the inquisitive Ms Weggins ( surely a name less dulcet in tone would be hard to find, huh? ) is recovering from her lack-lustre love-life ( and of course a painful divorce from a gambling fool ) at a good friend’s rural retreat in Massachusetts for the week-end. The Cedar Inn is also a trendy Asian-themed spa and before you can say" Beijing" she stumbles upon a very well –wrapped corpse, a young female member of staff tightly wound up in Mylar. Our Ms.Weggins offers to help her gal-pal, the innkeeper Danielle "Danny" Hubner, newly married to the unctuous, oily George who has no alibi for the night of the murder of Anna Cole.

All the local men have had their eye on the deceased sexpot. George appears to have developed a fixation on the lady. Of course the plot thickens turgidly thereafter as Bailey confronts a handful of uncooperative male members of staff and falls for the manly Detective Jeffrey Beck, even though she has had one hot and heavy and lusty reunion with her former lover Dr. Jack Herlihy, a Professor of Psychology. No one person is what they seem; all are elusive and prevaricating in the quest to get at the truth. Even the victim’s own sister cannot be trusted. An earlier ‘accidental death’ at the spa is revealed, the father of the local tavern keeper in nearby Warren who is still agitated over his Dad’s fatal heart-attack during a massage. And so it goes:big-city sophisticate risks life and limb to expose the very last person that you would suspect of murder.

No actual surprises here and a superficial superfluous thriller that rarely convinces at more than the Harlequin/ "bodice-ripper" level of lighter-than-air summer distraction. Sad to say our Ms. Weggins just lacks that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes an indefatigable and truly resourceful heroine in this demanding genre of escapist fiction.

© Alex Grant June 2003
alexgrantreviews@hotmail.com

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