Ventry

This earnest, awkward first novel features a standard character (an ex-cop with an alcohol problem) in an unexceptional story (he's talked into investigating a murder by his father, a famous gossip columnist whom he hates). Ventry (no first name given) has retired to upstate New York to indulge his passion for painting. The dead man is a neighbor and a noted painter whose wife happens to have made the sole purchase at Ventry's recent show. Such coincidences keep cropping up amid a plethora of over-written dialogue during the almost random investigation by Ventry and his newfound Australian love, whose missing young cousin may be the murderer or yet another victim. A shady antiques dealer, a smooth-talking con man, a high-powered lawyer and his randy young wife are among the usual suspects, but readers who subscribe to the ``least likely candidate'' school of thought will pin the real killer by mid-book. (Sept.)