RHYTHM & CLUES

Odelia Grey temporarily surrenders her title as Corpse Magnet to her niece, Lorraine.

Odelia’s trying to stay on the straight and narrow, since her husband Greg’s well-deserved vacation leaves only pets Wainwright and Muffin to shield her from disaster. So when her mom, Grace Littlejohn, and Grace’s neighbor Art Franklin tempt her to probe the disappearance of Boaz Shankleman, another senior citizen, she politely declines. Too bad for Odelia that Lorraine, visiting California to recover from a breakup with her fiance, is only too happy to help Grandma Grace investigate. Grace and Lorraine end up in the slammer after breaking into Shankleman’s condo, where they discover the bludgeoned body of Cydney Fox, recently hired to manage Acid Storm, the band Shankleman headlines under the name Bo Shank. Reluctantly, Odelia joins her family’s search for Shankleman. She goes along with Grace and Lorraine to question Acid Storm’s previous manager, Titan West, who ends up shot to death by the end of the interview. Now two for two, Lorraine is attracting quite a bit of attention from the Santa Ana police. With her brother, former cop Clark Littlejohn, threatening to haul his daughter back to New Mexico, and her husband threatening to cut his vacation short, Odelia knows she’d better find Fox and West’s killer quick, before her family implodes.

More corpses surely lie in wait for the heroine of A Body to Spare (2015). But it’s fun to see her ditzy niece share the spotlight this time around.