cover image Old Faithful Murder

Old Faithful Murder

Valerie Wolzien. Fawcett Books, $5.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-449-14744-3

Susan Henshaw's family winter vacation in Yellowstone National Park is quickly overwhelmed by the Ericksen clan's reunion at the same snowed-in hotel. When an effigy of domineering Grandfather Ericksen is thrown into a geyser and the curmudgeon himself is murdered, Henshaw is called upon to play amateur sleuth. Soon another body--that of the gay lover of one of the Ericksen sons--is found frozen in the snow. What follows is a genre mystery with a myriad of flaws. The Ericksens are portrayed as a dysfunctional family, and so readers must suffer through pages of psychobabble. And although a storm's stranding the guests in the park without police assistance is plausible, why should housewife Henshaw run the investigation when a park ranger on site has police training and another guest is a former police detective? Nor does Wolzien ( We Wish You a Merry Murder ) do Yellowstone justice; she uses the isolated winter wilderness as a plot device but neglects to use it for texture. Finally, the motivations she ascribes to the killer are contradictory: having killed ostensibly to keep a favorite family member near, the murderer is willing to let that relative go to prison as the fall guy in the murders. (May)