KILL THE BUTLER!
by Michael Kenyon
When rich old Lou Langley is killed in a suspicious accident on his Long Island estate, Chief Rosko of the Dunehampton police, eager to prove he's doing everything he can, gets the bright idea of planting an English detective in the household as a butler—and the job naturally falls to Henry Peckover, the poet of Scotland Yard (Peckover Holds the Baby, 1988, etc.). The family seems unsuspicious despite Peckover's howlers, but he'll still have his hands full—with the sudden redistribution of wealth (to two daughters and their uninspiring husbands) after Langley's widow Millicent is killed; the disappearance of the cook and the caretaker (the latter a professor of history discredited by accusations that he forged the papers proving Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack); the bullying of local Sgt. Vito De Voto; the amatory depredations of one Crescent Rump; and the arrival of Hurricane Doris, the ultimate femme fatale. More sprightly, foolish, mildly mystifying light comedy from Kenyon. He should apply for a patent.