Double Cross

Twin authors McCafferty and Taylor are clearly not worried that the well of their well-worn trick will run dry. The third installment in their breezy series (after Double Exposure and Double Murder) featuring the twin amateur detecting duo of Nan and Bert Tatum leaves no opportunity for doubletalk unexploited. Named for the Bobbsey twins, the Tatum sisters once again use their identical looks to solve murder. Bert, secretary to overbearing attorney Stephanie Whitman, asks Nan, a radio deejay, to fill in so she can attend a job interview. The reluctant Nan literally runs into a man fleeing after he has apparently broken into the law office. When Stephanie is later found murdered, police suspect the two incidents are related. Knowing that Stephanie had been a successful divorce attorney who extracted huge settlements from adulterous husbands, Nan and Bert are surprised to discover taped conversations in which Stephanie propositions these same men, clearly a set-up that provides an apparent motive for murder. McCafferty and Herald alternate using Nan and Bert as first-person narrators, which can be a bit confusing, but the prose is airy and entertaining. A subplot in which Bert agonizes over her relationship with Detective Hank Goetzmann, formerly Nan's boyfriend, further tightens the sisters' bonds of intimacy and heaps on another helping of cuteness. (Oct.)