EVEN YUPPIES DIE

Another chapter in the lives of the feisty, aging actresses Evangeline Sinclair and Trixie Dolan (Shadows in their Blood, 1993, etc.), who now find themselves unexpectedly renting a penthouse in Docklands, on the Thames, in London, instead of a house in St. John's Wood. That house was repossessed by debtors of the women's young realtor friend Jasper, an entrepreneur whose grandiose building plans, de-escalated from the raging '80s, have left his converted Docklands warehouse unfinished and half filled with now struggling yuppies, like himself. Tenants Frederick and Sophie Morton are trying to finish the building's promised restaurant, meanwhile serving Sunday lunch on the Gliding Gourmet, a decrepit nearby houseboat; Hamish Atherton shares an apartment with Eric, George, and Sebastian; broker Nigel Colroy shares his with Sophie's sister Sandra, to whom everyone owes money and who seems to have vanished; and pretty young Mariah is mysteriously ostracized by everyone except solvent financier Lazlo Tronnix. The discovery of Sandra's body awash in the river brings Detective Superintendent Heyhoe back into the actresses' lives but doesn't solve any of their true anxieties, like how to find the appliances hidden in their ultramodern kitchen. There's a second death, and a culprit is eventually produced—events once more purely incidental to Evangeline's and Trixie's wry dialogue and Nosy Parkering. Loosely plotted is an understatement here, but harmless fun for those enamored of the ditzy duo.