LARGE TARGET

Murray’s second novel brings back plus-size p.i. Josephine Fuller (Larger Than Death, 1997), who lives in Seattle but does

most of her work for wheelchair-bound San Diego philanthropist Alicia Madrone, appraising the worthiness of her charity’s recipients. At the moment, Josephine, recovering from the death of her best friend Nina and struggling with her feelings for Nina’s lover Mulligan, welcomes a call from her patron. It seems that Sally Rhymer, Mrs. Madrone’s old friend, divorced from retired Admiral Ron Rhymer, is much concerned about her estranged daughter Amy, who’s involved with something called the Feather Heart Project that requires her to spend endless hours with dying people but still allows her enough time to keep her daughter Stephanie away from her grandmother. Mrs. Madrone’s able assistant Ambrose arranges for Josephine to meet Amy at the home of the Admiral’s son Dwight and wife Colleen. The Admiral is there too, in his usual drunken, wife-chasing form. It’s Colleen who later gets a call from the Admiral saying he’s been kidnaped, ransom demand to follow. What ensues, however, is murder most foul, when the Admiral’s friend Stewart Meade is found dead on Colleen’s kitchen floor, beginning a series of characters, incidents, and speculations so baroque and densely woven they defy description. Murray, who writes well and has an attractive heroine in Josephine, needs to prune back her lush plotting and bring a cast

of dozens down to reasonable size.