The Possessions of a Lady: 8a Lovejoy Mystery

Fans of the lovably crooked antique ""divvy"" Lovejoy will doubtless rejoice at a new caper, while those unused to the convoluted comings and goings of the wily East Anglian con man will despair at the hopeless muddle that Gash has the gall to pass off as a plot in this 19th series entry. Lovejoy makes fun during a fashion show, and his newest lover casts him aside. Meanwhile, his business is sinking. Each time the slick thief spots a genuine find, another crooked soul beats him to the purchase. Is another ""divvy"" invading his territory? Affairs worsen as the lowly Lovejoy domicile is cordoned off by the gendarmes. Lovejoy is forced to offer his unique services in a chain dating enterprise, and he's grudgingly made master of ceremonies at a combined fashion show/antique sale. The antiques aren't much, but the valuable older dresses modeled by the sad-eyed anorexics soon have things heating up, especially when a good pal is murdered and a Molotov cocktail explodes a little too close to Lovejoy for comfort. All this is recounted in the breathless prose Gash has long and effectively employed. Little of it makes too much surface sense, and the only time the author lets up is to linger on a convoluted piece of antique lore, usually concerned with the fobbing off of a masterly forgery onto the unsuspecting public, a ruse as often as not masterminded by the never-modest Lovejoy himself. Author tour. (Aug.)