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A BODY TO DYE FOR by Grant Michaels

A BODY TO DYE FOR

By

Pub Date: June 22nd, 1990
Publisher: St. Martin's

Clearly bored with the upright, straightforward, homosexual hero (David Brandstetter, for example), Michaels' debut features smart-alecky quipster Start ""Vannos"" Kraychik, a Boston hairdresser who arrives for drinks with a visiting National Park ranger to find him dead in bed, adorned with stylish bow-ties on various appendages. Whodunit? Lt. Branco pegs Vannos, who, in protest, starts his own investigation, beginning with the ranger's Boston host, Calvin, a fancy architect (unpleasantly dispatched midbook, alas). Sashaying from handsome good guy (Branco) to handsome mystery man (Yudi from Yosemite) to handsome salesman Aaron, rock-climber instructor Wacky-Jacky, architectural consulting-firm receptionist ""Muffin,"" etc., Vannos, with tart tut-tuts from Snips Salon owner Nikki, not only finds the murderer and uncovers a nasty legal loophole, which will allow condo development in the middle of Yosemite, but also improves his social life. Plotting so limp that all the hairspray in Boston wouldn't hold it up. Vannos, however, is rather endearing with all his lusty insecurities, despite too many unfunny one-liners.