Never Nosh a Matzo Ball

Kahn helps readers to a full serving of Judaic wit and wisdom in this follow-up cozy to Fax Me a Bagel. This time the Eternal, Texas, rabbi's widow, Ruby Rothman, is caught up in a temple fund-raiser--selling frozen, reduced-fat matzo balls, which are being stored in the Center for Bodily Movement, the town's new gym. But when a fitness trainer is found dead behind the center with a thawed matzo ball in his pocket, Ruby gears up to help her friend police Lt. Paul Lundy investigate. As she noses around, the temple's rabbi falls madly in love with the center's spiritual adviser, just one complication in an increasingly convoluted and confusing plot. Before Ruby can warn the rabbi of her suspicions that something's not kosher at the center, the two are drugged and left to freeze in the center's walk-in refrigerator. After escaping by building a fire that alerts authorities, Ruby is now even more suspicious about the center and decides to go all out to discover its secrets. Risking her life and those of others, she uncovers murderers, illegal drugs and a smuggling scheme, never for a moment losing her sense of humor and sharp eye for the absurd. This is chicken soup for the funny bone, a bit overdone but hearty all the same. (Mar.)