DOUBLE EXPOSURE

A second adventure for fortyish Nan and Bert Tatum, identical twin sisters living in Louisville, Kentucky, where Nan is a DJ at country-music station WCKI, and Bert, her 20-year marriage ended, works as an office temp. The twins' previous experiences in sleuthing (Double Murder, 1996) have provoked a series of calls to Nan from a nameless, obviously sick woman begging for help in solving the murder of her ``sweet baby.'' Nan, though sympathetic, brushes her off. She's more absorbed by the new man in her life- -Crane Morgan, a portrait photographer from nearby Owensboro, introduced to her by effusive matron Louise Eagleston, from the same town. It soon develops that Crane is also an identical twin. His brother Lane, accused of killing girlfriend Marian Fielding, committed suicide two years ago. It's Bert, taking Nan's place as a dinner guest, who finds Louise stabbed to death in her kitchen, and Police Detective Hank Goetzmann—Nan's old flame, soon to be Bert's new one—is put in charge of the case. Crane Morgan, the prime suspect, is given an alibi by Nan, whose anonymous caller has grown even more hysterical with the news of Louise's death. Only when the sisters, seemingly at risk, venture into their own rash investigations does the silly plot stagger to its conclusion. Nan and Bert's narration, in alternating chapters, has a wryly chipper style that all too quickly begins to pall, though it might be more palatable in the service of a plot that doesn't test credulity at every turn.