OPEN AND SHUT
by Val McDermid
Who killed blackmailing, bisexual Alison Maxwell? Her former lover Jackie Mitchell has been tried and convicted, but another former lover—reporter Lindsay Gordon, recently returned from Italy—is hired by another lesbian chum, Claire, to investigate. Lindsay quickly discovers that Alison played musical beds with most of the lesbian population of Glasgow—and, to a woman, they loathed her, as did the few husbands she also dallied with. The police, however, have failed to follow up on a clue: on a glass is half a thumbprint that is neither Alison's or Jackie's. When a friend and neighbor's apartment is ransacked (gone missing: state secrets, as well as a homosexual M.P.'s cache of naughty pictures), Lindsay soon finds herself with two cases to solve—but, fortuitously, the robbery produces an eyewitness to the murder, who's fingered in one of those dreadfully corny everyone-gathered-in-the-lounge scenes. Whiny, and teeming with one-dimensional love triangles. A flat follow-up to McDermid's more engaging Report for Murder.