So Dear to Wicked Men

Talk about unusual opening gambits: this mystery begins when the heroes serve poisoned food to the murder victim. Julia Lambros and her Greek immigrant husband, Nick, knock off Glenn Bohannon--accidentally--who was a breakfast customer at their restaurant in Delphi, Ga. The immigrant-bashing sheriff suspects Julia and Nick, but the real killer must have been one of the Buffaloes, local businessmen who had morning coffee with Bohannon and had ample opportunity to poison his food. When the cafe's new cook, Spiro Papavasilakis, rents a ramshackle house, his neighbors are several nervous Hispanics who claim to be studying at the local university. The rental agent, beautiful Connie Santos, was more than friends with Bohannon and with another Buffalo, bank president Morgan Fox. This gives Julia and Nick their first clue to the murder motive, but learning more requires breaking and entering, wringing information from a wronged wife and posing as mill workers. Although Spiro's choice of rental housing is a bit too convenient, Julia and Nick are believable innocents caught in a murder plot, and their food-service skills are surprisingly handy (they pick locks with souvlaki skewers). Nick and Julia engage in some middling repartee and own a sparkplug of a little dog, but they haven't developed the charm of Nick and Nora Charles. (Nov.)