cover image Sorrowheart

Sorrowheart

M. K. Lorens. Doubleday Books, $17 (387pp) ISBN 978-0-385-46781-0

Tucked away on the Hudson River, the town of Ainsley, N.Y., is jolted awake by the arrival of James Macauley, the new chancellor of DeWitt Clinton College, and by the sinister presence of a serial killer. Just as English professor-cum-mystery writer Winston Marlowe Sherman (last seen in Dreamland ) is ruminating on the killings, Sarah Cromwell, his significant other, trips over a corpse in the orchard of Sorrowheart, home of her friend Elsa Worthing. Like the three women murdered before her, the latest victim has been injected with a less than fatal dose of digitalis--yet there is no other sign of foul play. Winston is only lukewarm about meddling in the murders; he is busy battling ``the Iron Chancellor,'' who schemes to dilute the curriculum and, incidentally, to get Sorrowheart condemned so that the college can appropriate the land. Then Winston realizes that the careful timing of the death hints that another is soon to come. Lorens brings Ainsley to life with a substantial cast of varied characters. Best of all, she does an excellent job of dangling the solution before our eyes while making sure that we--and her cuddly curmudgeon of a sleuth--cannot see it. (May)