Murder Will Speak: A Regency Mystery

Pallid both as a thriller and a romance (or a spoof), this Regency mystery features four foppish aristocrats in search of a killer. Corinne, Dowager Countess deCoventry, ""still"" ravishing at 24, has her fabulously entailed family pearls plucked from her throat by a rogue dressed as Robin Hood at a masquerade ball. She noticed that his hands were rough and he spoke with a French accent. Armed with this information, her three good friends--Lord Luten (the leader of the Ton, or fashionable London), Sir Reginald Prance (a witless dandy) and Coffen Pattle (agreeable and rich)--band together to track down the invaluable gems. Collectively known as the Berkeley Brigade (they all live on Berkeley Square), they ferret out a Drury Lane seamstress who provided the Robin Hood costume. She is obviously frightened and is later discovered strangled. Utilizing their best skills (mostly arrogant sneers, haughty smiles and bored drawls), the foursome discover the Robin Hood impostor, now also dead. A whirlwind farce follows, with interviews in glittering ballrooms populated with bejeweled women and rakish men. Enfeebled prose (""She had hair like spun silk... her lips were ripe and red as cherries"") does little to enrich this hapless story by the author of over 100 Regency romances... and a few mysteries (Behold, A Mystery!, 1994). (July)