Murder on Broadway

How's he doin'? He's gettin' closer. In his second appearance, New York City mayor-for-life Ed Koch shows more life than he did in Murder at City Hall. Among the audience at the Broadway musical, The Last Laugh, Koch and his friend, newspaper gossip columnist Sybil Baker, see lead actor Conor Matthews shot--as he is every night in the play. Only this time the gun isn't shooting blanks. Another homicide right in front of His Honor, the Mayor. Koch combines his street smarts and mayoral connections as he hunts for the murderer. The Last Laugh, he learns, hasn't been selling well lately, and it wouldn't be beyond its vainglorious composer, Nolan MacDougall, to stage a murder to help the box office. Or might Beau Walton, the previous lead who left for Hollywood but can't get arrested--as an actor--want his old part back? With Sybil supplying the inside scoop, Koch casts a suspicious eye on Matthews's fiancee, Kellie Farrell, who played the female lead, and her new lover, Wesley Fink, the actor who fired the fatal shot. And what exactly do all those books by Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Plath in Matthews's dressing room mean anyway? Although this effort is a step up from his first, readers will still wish for more undiluted Koch and his take on the streets of New York in the next installment. (July)