The drop-dead gorgeous hero ofMaggie Kelly's popular mystery series, Alex Blakely (aka the Viscount Saint Just), came to life in Michaels's Maggie Needs an Alibi
; the two return to face more murder with wit and a certain kind of almost accidental panache in a locked-room caper plopped inside a romantic comedy. Maggie and crew (Alex's butler, Maggie's editor, etc.) head to England to watch the filming of her latest murder mystery and get trapped on location in a creepy mansion when a major rainstorm floods the grounds and the power goes out. People start turning up dead, and Alex and Maggie try to figure out whodunit while engaging in ongoing rounds of double entendre as they consider their mutual infatuation. Michaels's lively characters and skewering of all sorts of types—the overreaching actor, the studio jerk—provide much of the fun, since the murders and the schemes behind them are nothing special. Light and funny, if overlong, Michaels's latest should please her many fans. (Dec.)
