The Alpine Menace

As Daheim's readers well know, Emma Lord (appearing in her 13th mystery) is a full-time journalist and part-time sleuth in the tiny Washington lumber town of Alpine. Persuaded by Vida--her gray-haired yet spunky house-and-home editor at The Alpine Advocate, who strongly proclaims the value of family ties--Emma goes to Seattle to help a long-lost cousin who is accused of murdering Carol Stokes, his girlfriend and a former Alpine resident. Emma hasn't seen cousin Ronnie since he was a kid, 25 years ago, and from what she can tell he's an aimless loser who remembers little about the night of the murder except that he was out drinking. Thus, Emma and Vida shoulder the burden of clearing him and endure a busy week interviewing neighbors, a tangle of ex-girlfriends and boyfriends and both real and adoptive parents. Emma's rather stiff performance is balanced by the colorful and resourceful Vida, who uses her age to great advantage in eliciting information. Indeed, it is Vida who carries the plot and skillfully maintains the reader's interest in the murder investigation (particularly since Ronnie seems indifferent about his innocence). Daheim's fans will be thrilled to greet Emma and Vida once again, but new readers may be disappointed that she limits the local color of Seattle to a few street names and does little more than report background information (on her regular characters) that could otherwise serve as a warm welcome to her fictional world. (Oct.)