Danger in High Places: An Alix Nicholson Mystery

Lesbian photographer Alix Nicholson is in Washington, D.C., to take pictures of the AIDS quilt when she meets Sandra Hastings, a lone crusader who commandeers the microphone at an AIDS rally to demand that more government money be spent on research into cancers that afflict women instead of on AIDS research. Sandra is low on funds, so Alix invites her to spend the night in her hotel room. The next day Alix learns that Sandra is planning to immolate herself to draw attention to her cause; shortly thereafter, Sandra is found dead after toppling out of a hotel room window--an unfortunate turn of events, since Sandra is the most compelling character in the novel. On a hunch that Sandra's death was not a suicide, Alix investigates and is soon pushed down a long flight of subway stairs by an unseen assailant. Alix stays with a lesbian congressional aide she has just met, and the two spend their time stiffly exchanging biographical tidbits, such as Alix's firing from a high school teaching job because two of her female pupils took naked pictures of each other. The resolution of the mystery is tacky and unrealistic, and Gilligan's ( Faces of Love ) repetitive style is more suited to teaching a lesson than telling a story. (Aug.)