Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994 TAG: 9404110135
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by ANNA WENTWORTH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The wacky world of Hollywood agents, where fantasy becomes reality and vice versa, forms the background for Marlys Millhauser's latest, ``Death of the Office Witch.'' This is the second in a series featuring Charlie Green, a young single mom coping with a hectic lifestyle, a strong-willed teen-aged daughter and the possibility she may be psychic.
Charlie keeps hearing the voice of the unpopular office receptionist calling her. That's more than a little strange since the woman's murdered body has just been found in the bushes outside their office building. A police detective decides Charlie is psychic and wants her to help in the investigation. Charlie doesn't believe in ESP but decides to use more conventional methods to find the killer so the police will leave her alone.
Glitzy Hollywood meets the murky world of witchcraft in this light and entertaining novel. Millhauser manages to keep her unconventional subject matter in the realm of believability.
HOW TO MURDER YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW. By Dorothy Cannell. Putnam. $19.95.
If you think you have problems, pity poor Ellie Haskell. All she wants to do is throw a nice anniversary party for her in-laws, but everything backfires. ``Mum'' turns out to be a difficult and trying woman; demanding, interfering, irritating and full of martyred angst. In a nightmarish turn of events Ellie and Ben discover that his parents have been hiding the fact they were never officially married. Then Elijah, Ben's father, gets caught skinny dipping with an old (female) acquaintance appropriately named ``Tricks'' and ``Mum'' decides to move in with Ben and Ellie as a result. Ben retreats to work, leaving Ellie to cope.
At her wits' end, Ellie ends up at the local pub, where she and three other women, including Tricks' daughter-in-law, drown their sorrows in gin and plot ways to murder their mothers-in- law. It all seems jokey and innocent until one near miss and another actual murder, both copying plans made at the pub, indicate someone took the idea seriously.
Dorothy Cannell has a breezy style that carries the reader along on this unlikely little journey with ease. The plot is outlandish and hinges on a local village fete, but getting there is all the fun.
THE CAT WHO CAME TO BREAKFAST. By Lilian Jackson Braun. Putnam. $19.95
``The Cat Who Came to Breakfast'' is the latest in Lilian Jackson Braun's charming series utilizing the detective talents of millionaire Jim Qwilleran and his two Siamese cats. Braun's writing is strong enough to overcome the unlikely premise of crime-solving cats. She creates an atmosphere, a time and place, that becomes real to the reader. This time Qwilleran, Koko and Yum Yum are undercover at a small island resort that is being developed. (Breakfast is the name of the island, hence the book's title.) Accidents, some fatal, have been occurring. With the bad feeling among some of those who oppose the development, it may be that the incidents were not really accidents but deliberate attacks. Braun captures the conflict between the old-time islanders and the newcomers.
Qwilleran rescues a wealthy and eccentric young woman whose family are the aristocrats of Breakfast Island. She gives him some help but it is only when an old acquaintance of Qwilleran's dies that the clues come together.
Anna Wentworth also reviews books and plays for WVTF-FM.
by CNB