BEHIND ECLAIRE'S DOORS

Murder takes a backseat to fashion, great food, and Negronis in this first novel—even though Danish/Cajun swamprat Claire Claiborne, owner of Eclaire's haircutting salon, finds the first victim, manicurist Angie Labiche, in her own apartment with her once-and- future husband Dan bending over the corpse; and the second victim, New Orleans homicide cop Joe Antoine, was the last man she dated before deciding to go back to frat daddy Dan's overripe bed and board. The subplots—lawyer Dan's investigation of the theft of half a Parisian perfume formula; Angie's dealings in copycat watches and handbags; Joe's search for the father who never acknowledged him—are as tangled and unruly as kudzu, but that won't bother the clientele hanging on Claire's wide-eyed descriptions of her second-time-around march to those August nuptials with Dan or her confession that she didn't know then how long it would take them to get through July. Smirking upscale tumescence barely blunted by homicide. Calling Adrian Lyne.