The Apostrophe Thief: A Mystery with Marian Larch

The veteran author of You Have the Right to Remain Silent and other mysteries features Detective Sergeant Marian Larch of the NYPD Ninth Precinct in an unconvincing police procedural. As the story begins, Marian is in crisis. Plagued by a two-faced superior and an incompetent partner, she is about to quit the force, but first she must lie to protect a remote, sarcastic FBI agent who killed a suspect he hated during a shootout. She has been sleeping with the agent since the shootout, solely to satisfy ``sheer animal need.'' The mystery she must unravel involves a group of seemingly random items, including a jacket that once belonged to Sarah Bernhardt, that have been stolen from a Broadway theater currently hosting a play called The Apostrophe Thief . The hunt takes Marian into the oddball world of memorabilia collectors, and the murder of a prime suspect challenges her deductive powers, but the policework here is a lot less realistic than the backstage settings. ( July )