Body Language

One of crime fiction's smuggest characters, gay journalist Mark Manning, returns (after Eye Contact) in another precious tale. This one concludes with a solution that manages the dubious achievement of being both painfully obvious and singularly implausible. Mark quits his newspaper job in Chicago to take over a small-town newspaper in Dumont, Wisc., where he spent part of his childhood. His lover, architect Neil, stays in the Windy City while Mark sets up shop, hires a hunky associate, buys back the family mansion and reacquaints himself with his distant family. But events turn tragic when his successful cousin Suzanne is murdered at a dinner party also attended by his mentally challenged cousin, Joey, and Suzanne's surly, homophobic son, Thad. A good-looking local cop is soon sifting through suspects. Manning is pretty much insufferable, especially as Craft packs the book with an improbable number of handsome men. And though the ""hidden in plain sight"" ending trick is an old and trusty mystery gambit, it requires more narrative skill than this author manages to summon. (May)