Murder Observed

Clara Gamadge is a detective in the honorable tradition of Hercule Poirot: this 70-year-old grandmother, the widow of sleuth Henry Gamadge, calls on her little gray cells to sort out a most confusing conundrum in the sequel to Boylan's Working Murder . Clara's lifelong friend and bridge buddy, Anna Lockwood Pitman, is run down before her eyes, moments after the victim confided her suspicions about the young man at the wheel of the car in question. When the culprit, handsome Dollfuss Moltke, is himself thrown from a window, the plot thickens. Not only is Moltke not at all what he appeared to be, but his companion, the lovely Beth, is revealed as the granddaughter of Anna's first husband--the result of a WW II romance. Clara uncovers a blackmail plot and a group of neo-Nazis, in a sprightly first-person narration. Shortly after orchestrating the killer's capture, she attends a wedding, moving through both events with equal aplomb. Boylan's writing is crisp and intelligent, her heroine endearing. (June)