TRIPLE PURSUIT

Maud Gorman, the most flirtatious septuagenarian at St. Hilary's Senior Center, brings widowed former brothers-in-law Jack Gallagher and Austin Rooney to blows—and to a lawsuit over who hit whom first in re Gorman. But before their suit comes to trial, Jack is headed to court on another matter: his confession that he romanced and killed sexy young Aggie Rossner, a litigator at the law firm of Mallard and Bill, where his daughter Colleen works as a paralegal. Both Colleen and her married brother Tim, however, seem to have stronger motives for murder than their former radio host and still publicity-hungry dad: Colleen was angry about Aggie's attempts to seduce her fiancé, rising legal star Mario Liberati, and Tim was eager to keep his brief fling with Aggie a secret from his wife. Furthermore, Aggie's romantic escapades did not stop with the Gallaghers; Linda Hopkins, a chambermaid at the Hacienda Motel, saw her with another Mallard and Bill lawyer, but she's already exited the case via a close encounter with oncoming traffic before she can identify him. The police are stymied, but Father Dowling, in what amounts to a cameo appearance, appears at the murderer's doorstep in time to rescue Colleen from his clutches and turn him over to Fox River Police Captain Phil Keegan.

Leisurely to the point of inertia, with barely a glimmer of Father Dowling and his pipe (Grave Undertakings, 2000, etc.), but way too much of his gossipy housekeeper Marie.