CURTSEY

Who says there's no social life in Roundup, Wyoming? Certainly not Lilly Bennett, the marshal/security chief who graciously allows her beau Richard Jerome to squire her to every function on the calendar--and finds corpses at most of them. This time the luckless victim is the Baroness Rita von Singen und Mengen (n‚e hometown fatty Rita Haye), shot neatly to death as the Children's Hospital Christmas Party winds down. Since rumor has linked the Baroness with everyone from Texas oilman Sam Campbell to midwestern widow Cordelia Hamilton, and the widower, charming Baron Harry, with everyone from Lilly's old friend Fancy French to Fancy's brother Daniel, Harry decides he'd better retain Lilly to keep him out of jail. But Lilly's detection, as in her debut (Bad Manners, 1995), takes a back seat to easterner-bashing, great clothes (Sam Campbell's infant wife turns up as ""a carhop in Versace""), glimpses down every aging d‚colletage in the county, and a delicious social parade from one tacky gathering to another, from the Roundup Debutante Ball (equally lethal to one invited guest) to opening night at Ada, a cattle-queen Aida. As for the mystery itself, well, ""once we got the remains taken care of, the party turned out to be hysterically fun.