cover image Unquiet Grave

Unquiet Grave

Janet LaPierre. St. Martin's Press, $15.95 (226pp) ISBN 978-0-312-01102-4

After a dinner party, a beautiful young computer genius is brutally beaten and murdered. All clues point to the dinner's host, college professor Joe Mancuso, a lifelong friend of the victim and one of her teachers. Soon two other unsolved attacks in the northern California town of Port Silva are also pinned on Mancuso, who is under suspicion because of his friendship with another beautiful young girl, who, with her aging hippie friends, is a member of an animal rights organization-cum-rock group. Add to this a young Hispanic police chief who feels his reputation is at stake and a police force that ranges from friendly grandfather types to John Birchers, and the result is a first novel that suffers from too many viewpoints. Although Lapierre has a good ear for dialogue, she is not adept at pacing and plotting. Various red herrings, subplots that are abruptly introduced and forgotten, and frequent scenic descriptions that slow the momentum combine to vitiate a mystery that runs out of steam long before the final page. (December 21)