FINISHING TOUCH

Melissa Craig, the most successful crime writer since Agatha Christie (A Little Gentle Sleuthing, 1991), is now offering a course at the Mid-Cotswold College of Arts and Technology, where the usual faculty types abound: the stodgy dean; the Lothario lecturer; the soul-tormented tutor; and the gorgeous, sexy faculty secretary—here, Angelica, who's promoted (just like that) to replacement art teacher. Then Angelica is murdered, and Melissa, of course, investigates—uncovering the dean's licentious weekly outings; the tormented tutor's angry slap; and a visit to the deceased just before she died by her former best friend and her former fiancÇ (who was so upset at her abandonment that he stabbed a portrait of her). Another murder occurs before Melissa, tut- tutted over by her artist chum and neighbor Iris and warned off by the local inspector, resolves the scandal and the overwrought murderer slips over the edge, literally. Charmless, with gooey romantic twinges and predictable swipes at greeting-card artist-students, faculty wives, and the like.