Love and the Single Corpse

There's never a dull moment in Griffin's latest Hannah and Kiki romp (after Date with the Perfect Dead Man), a caper that has less to do with solving a mystery and more to do with the eccentric antics of the 60-something sisters who star in this smart, snappy series. The story opens at Hannah and Kiki's high school botany club reunion in California's trendy Marin County. While flamboyant, man-hungry Kiki sets her sights on the most recently widowed male, sensible Hannah prefers to chat with her old teacher, Geraldine, who tells Hannah that she's in trouble and is about to bring to light something illegal and morally reprehensible. Geraldine is murdered before she can reveal the rest, but leaves Hannah with a letter containing a list of names, one of which leads to a distributor of exotic meats. Between manicures, mud wraps and snooping, Hannah and Kiki manage to expose a racket that harvests human organs by using the most heinous methods. The engaging, mature characters who populate the pages will be enormously appealing to older audiences. (Aug.)