FINAL CURTAIN

Tepid romantic suspense from southern specialist Ballard (The Widow's Woods, etc.), who, this time out, sends Virginia Cameron to Fiddler's Glen and the Plumb-Nelly tavern/guest-house to discover what really happened 50 years ago to her grandmother's sister, Dahlia Brown. Naturally, Dahlia's ghost soon wafts by to drop clues—flower petals, for instance, that point to a scrapbook in the barn. Two men vie for Virginia's hand; an imperious dowager demands she make a fourth for bridge; and several old-timers offer differing stories about Dahlia and the acting troupe she was a part of. Now if only Virginia could find the old playbills.... Several scares later (car-brake tinkering/spooky phone calls/the death of a serving girl), Dahlia's murderer and Virginia are locked in mortal combat in the barn until a confession is pried loose and Dahlia drifts away in peace. Lacks the menace and sexual tension that are hallmarks of romantic-suspense, and not at all helped by a dull heroine, her two even duller suitors, and—a first?—a dull ghost.