THE BORIC ACID MURDER

Plucky Gloria Lamerino, the retired middle-aged physicist who lives upstairs from the Galigani Mortuary in Revere, Mass., doesn’t believe her landlord’s son John had anything to do with the death of his ex-girlfriend Yolanda, even if the cops have pulled him in. After all, John’s successor in Yolanda’s heart was assistant director of the library where she was found sprawled at the bottom of the spiral staircase. And she was probably also dallying with a married chum while agitating for better boron control in reactor pools and antagonizing the Catholic Church and local politicos who refused to allow library’s expansion plans to proceed. Surely, thinks Gloria, there must be dozens of peachy suspects as well—even the head librarian, whose husband died ten years ago in exactly the same spot as Yolanda. Declining to share a threatening letter, a prowler’s visit, or an episode of tire-slashing vandalism with her lover, Revere crime specialist Matt Gennaro, lest he tell her to cool it, Gloria chips away at alibis and pokes among newspaper clippings, e-mails, and scientific folderol until she uncovers several more homicides over a 50-year span and almost causes her own before parceling out the murders between two killers with differing motives.

Though Minichino (The Beryllium Murder, 2000, etc.) explains complicated scientific scenarios with the simplicity and chumminess of Mr. Wizard, her pace is often slowed by too many red herrings—and too much middle-aged romance.