She Came in Drag

""Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, we'll turn the patriarchy into rubble."" So chants PI Emma Victor, caught in a militant Lesbian Revengers demonstration on Halloween night in San Francisco. Emma is flying high after unknowingly ingesting a hallucinogenic mushroom--not the best state to be in while protecting research scientist Dr. Rita Huelga, whose life is in danger after outing her ex-girlfriend, the rock diva Audra L on, on a TV talk show. The PI can't help wondering what would motivate the fiercely private mycologist to reveal her deepest secret, and her suspicions of Huelga are heightened when L on's girlfriend dies after dining on pasta and poisonous mushrooms. Lambda Award-winning Wings is superb in conjuring up the atmosphere of the city's lesbian scene as well as the creepy goings-on of the holiday; there are skeletons both in and out of closets, plot twists galore and more than one corpse interfering with Emma's trick-or-treating. Mystery fans not put off by a PI who isn't above using a one-night stand to get information will be so engaged by Wings's evocative prose and vivid details that they will be forgiving if all the loose threads aren't tied up neatly in the end. (June)