A KILLING CURE
by Ellen Hart
Lesbian feminist restaurateur Jan Lawless (Hallowed Murder, 1989, etc.), whose lover Dorrie and best friend Cordelia are members of Minneapolis's Amelia Gower Women's Club, is asked to solve the murders of two of the Gower's four board members, Charlotte and Rose—and she's soon racing along secret passages in the club's headquarters in pursuit of a killer, a ghost, a missing ledger (in code), and two valuable jewels. Did the deaths hinge on the outcome of the board's vote either to fund experimental AIDS drugs or train commandos to monitor the activities of anti-abortion terrorists? Jane will lose a lover, and almost her life, before all the red herrings have been caught—including an obnoxious young man defended by Jane's lawyer-dad—and before one murder is revealed to be a nasty accident, and the perp of the other stages a big blowout up at Sawmill Lake. Stodgy writing, silly plotting, and lots of feminist rhetoric- -with interruptions, now and then, for one of Cordelia's eating binges.