HAPPY NEVER AFTER

Sniffing a possible comeback spurred by a forthcoming movie about their 60's girl group—the VelvetTeens—Vonette Hunsecker and her cousin Rita Fontaine hire Callahan Garrity away from House Mouse, her cleaning service, to locate Delores Carter, the third VelvetTeen. Before Callahan can draw a bead on Delores, though, the roof falls in on Rita, who turns up dead drunk along with the body of former VelvetTeen producer Stuart Hightower— whom she'd just publicly threatened after he served her and Vonette with an injunction against using any of their old music in the film. Callahan investigates, and shortly finds out that Hightower was about as well-loved as most record-company execs. Callahan's fans may be disappointed that her interest in House Mouse has about run its course after only three appearances, but Trocheck's fey bonhomie is much better suited to the pop music scene than to the family traumas of Homemade Sin (1994).