Murder Crossed

In her fifth appearance, 70-year-old widow Clara Gamadge (Working Murder) returns to the Massachusetts boarding school of her youth to advise and help Louise Littleton, who is being asked a favor by a notorious alum. Former superstar actress Margo Llewelyn, who is having trouble finding work because she's ""difficult, drunk, and demoralized,"" wants to enroll her three daughters, each of whom has a different father, in the school. Margo shows up on campus with the girls, expecting to leave them at that very moment. Celestra Riondo, Louise's secretary, who has a history of mental illness, is star-struck with excitement by the visit. Three months later, after Margo is stabbed to death on the school grounds, her three former husbands arrive to pick up their daughters. Sensing a fight and not sure one of the men isn't the murderer, Louise, who has been named the girls' custodian, sends them to a remote Vermont convent for safety. Clara and Louise are stunned when Celestra confesses and when one of the husbands proves that the body is not Margo's but that of her movie stand-in. Where is Margo? And why did she hurriedly drop her children at the school? Clara is an entertaining presence, but Boylan's convoluted plot makes this cozy less exciting than some of Clara's previous outings. (Apr.)