From Publishers Weekly
An urgent message summons Jane Lawless to an unexpected psychedelic spectacleâ€"the entire wedding party of a schoolteacher acquaintance tripping outâ€"in Lambda Awardâ€"winner Hart's 11th assured mystery (after 2001's Merchant of Venus) to feature the Minnesota restaurateur and sometime sleuth. Someone has slipped a hallucinogenic mickey into Jane's catering staff's delectable comestibles, causing much embarrassment, litigation and one life-threatening injury when the groom leaps into an empty swimming pool. The poignant history of the groom's father, Alden Clifford, provides the ballast for this richly layered narrative, in which the suspense builds as the author slowly reveals the defining moment that overshadows all Alden's subsequent actions. Jane's longtime sidekick and co-investigator, Cordelia Thorn, is as diverting as ever, while the romantic atmosphere of Jane's Lyme House restaurant and the piquant offerings on the upscale menu will delight fans of culinary cozies. Touches of humor offset the heartfelt woe. Incorporating societal ills torn from the headlines, Hart bares the weaknesses in her well-realized characters as well as their strengths. Despite a plot refreshingly short on guns and gore, the tension is palpable in this spunky page-turner. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Jane Lawless is back, causing fans of Hart's long-running series to cheer, and fighting crime again after a wedding she caters becomes chaotic and life-threatening because someone spiked the buffet with hallucinogens. At her side again is trusty, witty regional theater exec Cordelia Thorne. But what's this--Cordelia playing Auntie Mame to the toddler her sister dumped with her? Yup, and as Auntie educates the little one in the finer points of film noir while discovering the dramatic depths of Kermit and Miss Piggy, amateur sleuth Jane sorts through molestation accusations against a friend, a possible new love interest, a decades-old unsolved kidnapping and murder, magic mushrooms that implicate one of her catering staff, and a corpse or two. The narrative flashes back to the early 1970s, though the bulk of the action is set in contemporary Minneapolis, where Jane's fine restaurant, the Lyme House, may suffer from wedding-reception fallout. Hart keeps us turning the pages as she cleverly shows past sins contaminating current lives. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Restaurateur Jane Lawless is thrilled to be catering the wedding of some family friends, Nick and Lauren Clifford, but when Jane arrives at the wedding, she's in for a shock of a lifetime-and one that could jeopardize her career. The food has been spiked with hallucinogenic mushrooms and the drug-hazed guests are engaged in reckless behavior.
When the groom takes a near fatal dive into an empty pool, an investigation begins and Jane turns to her best friend Cordelia Thorn for help in clearing her name. But when Cordelia's sister, Octavia, suddenly deserts her infant daughter on Cordelia's doorstep, Jane is on her own. Events take a turn for the worse when the father of the groom comes up against shocking accusations, and it's up to Jane to uncover the truth.
Once again, Ellen Hart has woven intriguing characters and surprising twists into a complex and absorbing story.
About the Author
Ellen Hart, multiple Lambda Award winner and two-time Minnesota Book Award winner, is the author of twelve Jane Lawless mysteries, including most recently An Intimate Ghost, and the Sophie Greenway mystery series. She lives in Minneapolis.
An Intimate Ghost FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Restaurateur Jane Lawless is thrilled to be catering the wedding of some family friends, Nick and Lauren Clifford, but arriving at the wedding, she's in for the shock of a lifetime - and one that could jeopardize her career. The food has been spiked with hallucinogenic mushrooms and the drug-hazed guests are engaged in reckless behavior." When the groom takes a near-fatal dive into an empty pool, an investigation begins, and Jane turns to her best friend, Cordelia Thorn, for help in clearing her name. But when Cordelia's sister, Octavia, suddenly deserts her infant daughter on Cordelia's doorstep, Jane is on her own. Events take a turn for the worse when the father of the groom comes up against shocking accusations, and its up to Jane to uncover the truth.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
An urgent message summons Jane Lawless to an unexpected psychedelic spectacle-the entire wedding party of a schoolteacher acquaintance tripping out-in Lambda Award-winner Hart's 11th assured mystery (after 2001's Merchant of Venus) to feature the Minnesota restaurateur and sometime sleuth. Someone has slipped a hallucinogenic mickey into Jane's catering staff's delectable comestibles, causing much embarrassment, litigation and one life-threatening injury when the groom leaps into an empty swimming pool. The poignant history of the groom's father, Alden Clifford, provides the ballast for this richly layered narrative, in which the suspense builds as the author slowly reveals the defining moment that overshadows all Alden's subsequent actions. Jane's longtime sidekick and co-investigator, Cordelia Thorn, is as diverting as ever, while the romantic atmosphere of Jane's Lyme House restaurant and the piquant offerings on the upscale menu will delight fans of culinary cozies. Touches of humor offset the heartfelt woe. Incorporating societal ills torn from the headlines, Hart bares the weaknesses in her well-realized characters as well as their strengths. Despite a plot refreshingly short on guns and gore, the tension is palpable in this spunky page-turner. (Mar. 8) FYI: Hart is also the author of Death on a Silver Platter (2003) and other titles in her Sophie Greenway mass-market mystery series. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
When lesbian restaurateur Jane Lawless (Immaculate Midnight) arrives late for a wedding reception that she's catering, she finds that someone has spiked the food with mind-altering drugs. When the groom dies as a result, blame will surely fall on her. Recommended for gay fiction and popular mystery collections. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Kids do the darnedest things-drugs, murder, and turning a campy auntie into a devoted handmaiden. The Clifford wedding is a shambles. The groom swan-dives into an empty pool while his guests hallucinate, his bride carries on with the best man, and his father, a teacher, wonders whether someone's laced his food with magic mushrooms to avenge a student suicide. To fend off possible lawsuits, Minneapolis caterer/sometime sleuth Jane Lawless (Immaculate Midnight, 2002, etc.) starts an investigation of her own that makes little headway-until one of her kitchen staff is knifed, and a major babe insisting she's a p.i. sows doubts about Clifford senior, whose wife was having an affair and whose students now accuse him of pedophilia. Was Clifford a good guy or a former 15-year-old druggie who let his sister Patsy be kidnapped back in Kansas in 1972, then killed a kid and took off, emerging 30 years later under a new name? It all plays out unbelievably as Jane snuggles up to the ersatz p.i. and her best chum Cordelia steals a moment from doting on her baby niece Hattie to create a dramatic diversion and save the day. Cordelia, weaning baby Hattie from cartoons to Bette Davis movies, is enough to make you slog through the tedious plot, Jane's schmaltzy new romance, and the ancient newspaper excerpts. Give the gal her own book already.
Art & Photography
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