The Grace in Older Women: 2a Lovejoy Mystery

Antiques divvy and sometimes shady dealer Lovejoy is becoming a caricature of his former self: scruffier, sneakier, ruder, more pusillanimous (``I'm pathetic, always terrified, always losing, hopeless''). He's copulating with more mature ladies, and nausea has replaced the dulcet chest chimes that used to alert him to genuine art treasures. At least this adventure (following The Sin Within Her Smile) brings him back to East Anglia, ever his optimum setting. Things turn truly sour for Lovejoy when his friend Tryer, proprietor of a mobile sex museum, is murdered. As he investigates, Lovejoy tries to understand the strange decline of the village of Fenstone (formerly Middle Snorting) and to cope with a gaggle of forgettable American tourists and their British cohorts. The older women of the title have considerable charm-""`Courage, Philadora,' she said quietly. `Lovejoy doesn't want weak-willed vicarage ladies. He needs partners of mettle.'"" Interesting asides abound: discussions of ``tomorrow auctions'' and penis rings, startling disclosures about Bonnie Prince Charlie and John F. Kennedy and Lovejoy's preparations for his big exhibition of fakes and forgeries. The motive for all the mayhem is ludicrously limp, but the denouement is quite delightful. (May)