Death on the Mississippi

In his first novel, which launches a projected trilogy, Heck sets Sam Clemens and his secretary, Wentworth Cabot, a genial but non-too-clever Yale graduate, to sleuthing in a period costume drama that is more costume than drama. Just as Clemens leaves New York City on a lecture tour, police discover a dead man who has Clemens's address in his pocket and assign a detective to stick with the author until the murder is solved. Clemens, who mistrusts the detective, determines to ``solve the damned thing myself,'' preferably before folks realize his tour plans include a stop to retrieve buried gold he discussed in Life on the Mississippi. Coincidentally traveling the same route, however, is ``Slippery Ed'' McPhee and his cartoonish thugs, known to Clemens from the past. When the party on the lecture tour is diminished by murder, it's time for Twain to summon the audience, take center stage and reveal all. Greed, deception and murder notwithstanding, this 19th-century tale meant to reflect Twain's robust stories is made bland by characters--including Clemens, who's reduced to a gruff but charming old boy--who are drawn from the outside in and remain imitations. (Dec.)