NO HONEYMOON FOR DEATH

Sergeant Matt Devlin, NYPD, and his fin-de-siäcle society bride Brooke (Death on the Cliff Walk, 1994) think they're leaving murder behind when they book their honeymoon cruise on the S.S. New York. But they're just taking it along with them, as they find when businessman Julius Hoffman disappears under highly prejudicial circumstances the first night out. When ship's owner J.P. Morgan, along for the ride, demands that Matt look into the case, Matt, goaded by Brooke (``I guess I'll just have to ask some questions myself''), reluctantly agrees to compete with a churlish ship's detective and an actor in full Sherlock Holmes regalia in tracking down the killer. Suspicion falls successively on Hoffman's half-brother Edward McCabe, who conveniently happens to be a steward on the New York; on Hoffman's secretary, Gregory Tate, disappointed in his hopes of marrying Hoffman's daughter Julia; and on Richard Langdon, Hoffman's partner and apparent successor with his ice-queen wife Adele—until Matt and Brooke have simultaneous brainstorms invoking the hoariest clichÇ of the man-overboard genre. Pleasant Gilded Age fare aswarm with mild suspects and up- to-the-minute insights about equality between the sexes.