Description:
Mystery novel series seem to have a special appeal for authors and readers alike. Fans can recite the alphabet (Sue Grafton's A Is for Alibi, B Is for Burglar) or chant a children's rhyme (Janet Evanovich's One for the Money, Two for the Dough)--and these days, courtesy of Camille Minichino, they can work their way through the periodic table of elements: The Hydrogen Murder, The Helium Murder, The Lithium Murder. Minichino, a retired Berkeley physicist, is up to element number four in The Beryllium Murder, which finds her shrewd physicist-sleuth, Gloria Lamerino, drawn back to the Bay Area. Gloria suspects that Gary Larkin's death by beryllium poisoning at Berkeley University Laboratory is not, as the police have decreed, a tragic accident. What better way to justify a trip to see old friends and colleagues? But when she arrives, her friend Elaine begs her to look into the disappearance of a missing teenager; as Gloria digs deeper into Manuel Martinez's mysterious absence, she finds a peculiar connection between the high school student and the dead physicist. It appears that Manuel has been profiting from certain scientists' computerized indiscretions by indulging in a spot of "hackmail." Subatomic particles aren't the only things that behave peculiarly in Gloria's world; her fellow physicists seem to have a lot to hide. The mechanics of the mystery aren't particularly riveting, but readers will forgive Minichino her tendency to supply Gloria with clues on a silver platter (the Berkeley police seem unusually willing to share evidence with a private citizen). Clad in comfortable knit pants ("Only fifteen more [pounds to lose] and I'd be down to the upper limit for 'medium-frame males' on the insurance charts. Never mind that at five-three, I was actually a small-frame female") and sporting one of her myriad collection of lapel pins, Gloria is a refreshing mix of stubbornness and insecurity, and readers will cheer her deductions no matter how they may arrive. The climax of the novel finds her skittering gingerly across a toxic waste dump; in between chuckles, you'll probably find yourself trying eagerly to remember just what comes after beryllium, and rejoicing that Minichino has at least 111 elements left to work with. --Kelly Flynn
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