RAVEN'S WIDOWS

Not particularly mild-mannered reporter Eldon Larkin, back for a fourth adventure (Banjo Boy, 1994, etc.), counters a case of burnout with an Alaskan fishing expedition. Right away, though, he's almost totalled by a totem pole: no ancient artifact but a recent work of art, it turns out. The surly native artist refrains from beating him up, while his hard-drinkin', hard-flirtin' agent, newspaper editor Anita, invites Eldon back to her homestead/office to write puff pieces on the local native celebrations—an arrangement he agrees to, considerng it an opportunity to subsidize his fishing trip. Eldon's excellent erotic adventure is complicated, however, by Anita's gimlet-eyed daughter Cassandra and the sexually competitive blond widow Maggie. When Max the artist is found fatally shot under a totem-in-progress, Chief Ed Katlean invites Eldon to solve the case for the good of the tribe. What follows is a catch-the-killer version of Northern Exposure, complete with winking squaw women, a control-freak storekeeper, a prospector with a paste-on beard, and a dog big enough to qualify for statehood. The wackiness of it all would work better if Eldon weren't so complacently in touch with his dirty-minded inner child, who yearns for mÇnages-Ö-trois and creature comforts at the expense of likability. Great local lore and a decent puzzle, but with a wit, in the end, too weak to bring them to life.