TRUST ME

In this typical Krentz romantic mystery, set in Seattle, the romance is lively, the mystery isn't, and everyone drinks a lot of coffee. Krentz (Grand Passion, 1994, etc.) must have signs in her office that say, ``If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'' And perhaps a computer programmed not to argue with success. With modern romances with two-word titles, and historical romances (as Amanda Quick) with one-word titles, she has built a hugely successful career by writing variations, some very close, on the same story. It's her usual mating of Pacific Northwest yin and yang. A brilliant, logical, emotionally repressed hero, Sam Stark, meets a warm, liquid, emotional heroine with a ridiculous first name, Desdemona Wainwright. As always, the hero is a self-made man; she's an entrepreneur. Sam is solitary and without much family. Desdemona has a large and nutty extended family. Her relatives are in the theater and are called Macbeth, Benedick, Juliet, etc. He's so attached to his computers, people call him an android (Amanda Quick's last hero was a ``clockwork man''). When they meet, Sam's just been left at the altar for the second time and Desdemona's the caterer trying to collect her bill for 200 miniature asparagus tarts and three ice swans melting on the lawn. He has rules; she makes him break them. She gives him humanity; he gives her orgasms. They're an unlikely pair, but it works for Krentz and several million readers. Soon they find themselves joined in a quest to find a murderer and catch a computer spy. Most important of all, they cross the minefield of intergender communication, that last sweet mystery of life, and end in a declaration of love. So much is entertaining, one wishes Krentz would get the rest right.