LADY IN THE LAKE

You're never too dead to become a media event—at least, not if you're King Arthur, and your legendary sword Excalibur has just been discovered by amateur academic Lady Harriet Dunning, who's practically as old as Arthur herself. Forensic archeologist Jeffrey Flint, called in to authenticate the sword for the insurance company, doesn't want the find to be genuine (imagine the nightmare for the insurers if it is!), but when the scientific tests check out, he braces himself for the unveiling of the sword, along with a spanking new copy, at a conference of the Pendragons. Alas, the copy is stolen even before a press announcement of the find can be made—soon followed by the priceless original—and when Lady Harry is found drowned under suspicious circumstances, Flint sadly realizes you can indeed be all too dead. The search for Harry's killer will take him through a mazy interlocking directorate of museum types, Arthurian buffs, heirs-apparent, and itinerant magicians attached to a group guilelessly dubbing itself the Arthur Roadshow. But the clue to the death of the latest Lady in the Lake lies, ironically enough, in the corpse of the beloved Alsatian that died along with her. This flatfooted mystery from Foss (Shadesmoor, not reviewed)—the miscreant is well-hidden, but the motive is both obvious and disappointing—is considerably pepped up by the generous helping of antic medievalists, most of whom are a lot less sharp than Excalibur.