THE CHINESE OXYMORON

The third entry in the ""Brown Bag"" mystery series (following Edith Skom's entertaining The Mark Twain Murders and Lloyd Biggle's splendid The Glendower Conspiracy) and by far the wackiest. This one features Miss Minikin Small, a tall, lithe, would-be model who inherits a shabby Manhattan townhouse, spruces it up with the aid of her houseboy, Li C. Fu, then watches her luck change much for the worse when she scoops up a mugging victim in her foyer--he's actually a scientist on a hush-hush project who'd been tortured--and listens to his (incomprehensible) dying words. The problems mount as Miss Small tries to decode those words--""burglary,"" ""vandalism,"" ""bugging,"" ""tails""--and after the theft of a valuable antique violin, which results in murder. Moreover, a master of disguise is on the loose in her vicinity, and he seems mighty interested in the concert itinerary of IA C. Fu's cousin, a violin prodigy. Meanwhile, the feds are plotting, the NYPD is lurking, but it'll be up to Miss Small to make the big discovery--and thwart the villains of the Western/Eastern world. Likably cranky heroine running amok in an Abbott and Costello plot--with amusing digressions, moments of whimsy, and an absolutely daffy notion of the spying community.