Murder at Kennedy Center

Likely to follow Truman's eight earlier mysteries up the bestseller lists, her ninth opens with a grand performance at the Kennedy Center honoring Senator Ewald, favored to win his party's nomination for president. But hopes dim after the extravaganza when Professor MacKenzie (Mac) Smith finds an Ewald campaign worker, Andrea Feldman, shot dead behind the Center. The senator's son Paul, who has been sexually involved with Andrea, is arrested for the murder, whereupon his wife, Janet, disappears. As a professor of law and Ewald's friend, Mac uses his skills to investigate those in Ewald's orbit. The suspects include the senator's wife, Leslie, his campaign manager, Ed Farmer, and a host of others capable of murder so as to cause a scandal ruinous to the candidate. At last, Mac penetrates the mystery, thickly layered in the complexities of Washington political processes, once again brought vividly to life by Truman's expertise. Literary Guild main selection. (July)