Death Takes a Hand: A Cassandra Swann Bridge Mystery

Veteran Moody ( House of Moons and the Penny Wanawake series) enlivens her traditional English cozy with a welcome new heroine. Cassie Swann, 30-year-old instructor at a Winter Bridge Weekend in a country hotel, discovers three students dead at their table and sneaks a peek at their hands before calling the police. Cassie, a constant dieter cursed with a Rubenesque form and no luck in love, considers the guests who assembled at the welcoming party the night before, but she can't imagine who might have wielded the blunt instrument that did in the spiteful Sonia Wetherhead (the elderly Colonel and Mrs. Plumpton are determined to have died of simultaneous natural causes). When the next weekend convenes with many of the same (surviving) participants, another old woman dies in her bed. Moody is cagey with her cast of suspects, including a famous author, an editor and a smooth-talking wine merchant named Casaubon. When Cassie isn't teaching bridge or trying to find out who's threatening her new career, she thinks guiltily about desserts and love, fending off the propositions of another student whom she--with yet more guilt--finds crudely proletarian. Adeptly mining laughs from the milieu, Moody leads her likable sleuth to a solution and the promise of success in both business and love. (Apr.)