THE CHRISTIE CAPER

An elaborately plotted homage to Agatha Christie—once again featuring Annie Darling (Deadly Valentine, etc.), owner of the Death on Demand mystery bookstore on South Carolina's Browards Rock Island. Annie has spent months planning a centennial celebration of Christie's birth—an event to be attended by writers, fans, and critics, and headed by England's top crime writer, Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins. An unwelcome guest is Neil Bledsoe—an all-around hateful critic-magazine publisher—accompanied now by aunt Kathryn Honeycutt, a dead ringer for Miss Marple. Bledsoe is credited with a number of suicides and ruined careers. Attendees Victoria Shaw and Derek Shaw are two victims of his malice. There are others present—and it'll soon become apparent that one of them is after Bledsoe, even before he noisily promises to slander Christie in a new book. Surviving attacks by shooting and a vase dropped from a height, Bledsoe finally gets his, but not before the deaths of two seemingly innocent bystanders. All of this explored, in excruciatingly drawn-out detail, by Annie and a clutch of would-be detectives headed by Lady Gwendolyn, along with Police Chief Saulter. Meanwhile, the author's knowledge of the genre is ever— and irritatingly—on show.