Keeping Secrets

Mickelbury's debut offers a pair of lesbian sleuths--an Italian cop and a black reporter--who spend work time tracking down a serial killer and play time pursuing each other. Four closeted gay professionals, three men and one woman, have been murdered in as many months. Despite efforts by Lt. Gianna Maglione, head of the Washington, D.C., police's Hate Crimes Unit, to impose a press blackout, a gay newspaper editor has picked up on the pattern of deaths. Mimi Patterson is assigned the story and gets her first surprise when she realizes Gianna is the luscious woman she recently spotted at the gym. Mimi is also concerned for her friend Freddy Schuyler, a former football player who is being pestered by gays who want him to come out--although it could ruin the popular nightclub he now runs. Professionally, Gianna and Mimi circle each other warily, yet they must come to terms with a mutual attraction so powerful that when one is targeted by the killer, the other is also drawn into danger. Although there is a disappointing inevitability to the identity of the killer, Gianna and Mimi imbue the tale with a certain winning zest. (Mar.)