SHADOWS OFFSTAGE

Beginning with the not-so-subtle epigram: The Beautiful die young...the good die young -- this dank shadowy mystery struggles to a feeble start as young Pete come to New York to witness the stage debut of his sister, Cinderella Wharton nee Anna Kowalski, and ends up discovering her suicide. After a series of scattershot threats, several portentous dreams and much histrionic dialogue (the theatre will break your heart into little pieces, very little pieces....Cindy was Cindy...a real thoroughbred...Go home kid, go back to that mining town and stay there. You're too young to die."") Pete begins to suspect foul play. But the reader starts to smell the overripe pumpkin long before Cinderella's last exit.