THE LAST LINE

A theater owner with Tourette syndrome teams up with the local police chief to solve an onstage murder.

Ellie Marlowe and Bill Starlin’s friendship goes all the way back to their childhood in Avalon, when Ellie was best friends with Bill’s sister, Ava. As adults, they went their separate ways, Ellie to a high-powered corporate job and Bill to the Massachusetts State Police. Now they’re both back in their hometown, Ellie to her dream job running the Kaleidoscope Theater and Bill as head of Avalon’s two-person police force. Married to Darlene, Bill has a bunch of kids; Ellie and husband Mike are trying for their first. As she works behind the scenes, Ellie keeps her tics under reasonable control until the death of lead actor Reginald Thornton IV during the last scene of the premiere of Murder in a Teacup thrusts her into the limelight. Though Bill’s former MSP colleagues are quick to call Reggie’s death a heart attack, Bill suspects that one of Reggie’s many enemies may have dispatched the relentless bully with a dose of Valium. Determined to help her old friend and save her theater’s reputation, Ellie launches her own investigation. Ellie and Bill’s increasingly complex relationships to their spouses and each other command the lion’s share of interest in what looks like a series debut. The everyone-hates-the-victim setup is shopworn, the investigation is routine, and the solution leaves many of the questions raised in the first few chapters unaddressed. Learning whodunit just isn’t enough.

Lyerly’s protagonist is engaging enough to deserve a better-plotted sequel.