THE GRUB AND STAKERS MOVE A MOUNTAIN

Murky doings in the never-never Canadian village of Lobdia Falls, where most of the citizenry are enthusiastic archers; where the women have names like Arethusa, Minerva, and Zilla (and care deeply about the fate of the Spotted Pipsessewa or the Pointed-leaved Tick Trefoil); and where one morning John Architrave, head of the Water Dept., is found dead on a wildflower preserve known as the Enchanted Mountain--shot through with a black-banded arrow. Pretty, practical Dittany Henbit suspects Andy McNaster, head of a local construction firm that has the yen to ""develop"" the mountain. And when Dittany discovers that local merchant Sam Wallaby (up for election to the Development Commission) is in McNaster's pocket, she loses no time in recruiting competent Samantha Burberry to be Wallaby's write-in opponent. So: the intrepid village ladies get Samantha elected (despite horrid tricks by the opposition); Dittany acquires two suitors; and Sergeant MacVicar, wordy but capable, nails the murderer in a relatively surprising finish. Cozy entertainment, despite a galloping case of the cutes; Craig (a.k.a. Charlotte MacLeod) was better and more restrained in her first--A Pint of Murder (1979).