GENEROUS DEATH

The first hardcover edition of a paperback published in 1984- -in which the author introduced Jenny Cain, amateur sleuth and director of the Port Frederick (Mass.) Civic Foundation. Here, the town's world-famous Martha Paul Museum, headed by cynical curator Simon Church, and other good works—like the Welcome Home for Girls, directed by young Allison Parker—are all supported by the town's rich benefactors, who are being murdered, one by one. Nice old Arnie Culverson is the first to die, followed by Moshe Cohen- -both poisoned—and then Mrs. Charles Hatch is found suffocated in an abandoned refrigerator. In the midst of the carnage, Jenny manages to visit her deranged, hospitalized mother; cope with the verbal attacks of her hate-filled sister; and start a hot romance with Geof Bushfield, the head cop on the case. Her grit and ingenuity are tested to the limit in the bizarre, unbelievable confrontation that answers all the questions and nearly kills her. Pickard has gone on to write seven more Jenny Cain stories (I.O.U., etc.), most of them as spirited as this first one but less verbose and overwrought—as well as more convincing in motivation and method.