The End of an Altruist

Despite her accumulating sorrow for her long-comatose husband, the bickering of her two grown sons and a downturn in her Boston interior decorating business, Olivia Chapman finds time to poke her nose into the investigation of a potential client's murder. Shortly after Jane Griscom asks Olivia to appraise a collection of American furniture she has inherited, Jane's altruistic husband Jonathan is gunned down in the seedy neighborhood where he was supporting a grass-roots rent strike. Olivia becomes heavily involved with the family as she encourages Jane, who is intimidated by Jonathan's four grown children, to start a preschool in the neighborhood where Jonathan was killed. Then Jane too is shot, and Olivia is directly, though falsely, implicated. While investigating the crimes to defend herself and Jane from whatever dangers beset them, Olivia discovers greed and resentment operating in unexpected quarters. In this fourth mystery, after C.A.T. Caper , Logan's brisk writing and a strong central character fail to fully compensate for an unengaging plot. (Feb.)