The Dead Celeb: A Lucy Freers Mystery

Maracotta displays the same killer eye for show-business ephemera that enlivened her first mystery, The Dead Hollywood Moms Society (1996). At a bridal shower for movie star Alison Wade--held at the hot New Cubana Room, a cigar club in Beverly Hills--the fare includes ""crusted monkfish in a blood-orange beurre blanc"" and ""rosy slices of wild duck breast over rock salt and citron, with polenta dumplings."" As seen through the laser eyes of animator Lucy Freers, details of such other lifestyle items as cars, clothes and private schools are equally acute. It's only the plot that sags here: once again the lively Lucy stumbles across a corpse; once again her pompous producer husband, Kit, seems to be involved; once again Lucy's life is as full of danger as a Sandra Bullock movie. The dead celeb is nasty but super-successful director Jeremy Lord, discovered on the toilet in a hotel room in New Mexico where he and Kit have been hissing at each other while making a movie. That the hotel room belongs to the ditzy and sexually abused sister of actress Alison (who was the most recent of Lord's many ex-wives), is only the first of many herrings served up by Maracotta as Lucy takes it on herself to solve the murder. But in spite of the manufactured and often silly melodrama, Lucy remains a natural--a worthy, wise-cracking role model, striving to fight off the ritzy temptations of Hollywood success in her quest to be a good wife, mother and creative artist. Author tour. (Oct.)