C. B. GREENFIELD: NO LADY IN THE HOUSE

Greenfield, inscrutable editor of the suburban Sloan's Ford Reporter, finds a murder on his doorstep when his new housemaid is killed and his beloved stereo equipment is stolen. What--wonder C.B. and urbane assistant Maggie Rome--is the murder's connection to a rash of Sloan's Ford robberies. . . or to the proposed sale of a long-disused local school. . . or to some strongly felt Women's Lib controversies in the neighborhood? Before the detecting twosome can figure it all out, however, three local matrons engage in some implausibly juvenile plotting--which spawns tragedy, a second murder, and a hurried trip to Florida for Greenfield and Rome. Kallen (The Tanglewood Murder) again offers wry, crisp styling, this time with amusingly acerbic comments on the Sunshine State; but, also again, the flimsy plotting and motivation will hardly satisfy even the most modestly demanding real-mystery readership.