Beat Up a Cookie: An Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller Mystery

When Ellie Bernstein of Colorado Springs was 55 pounds overweight and unhappily married to a chronic philanderer, she got through the tough times with the help of cheesecake and fantasies of murder mysteries. Now that she has shed both weight and husband, Ellie is solving real-life murder cases like this one, her second after Throw Darts at a Cheesecake . A devoted M*A*S*H fan, Ellie gets caught up in a series of murders of other local M*A*S*H aficionados who resemble characters on the long-running TV show. Like the popular TV series, this mystery features zany characters, zippy one-liners and such bizarre comic set pieces as Ellie's sharpshooting with a champagne-bottle cork. Missing, however, are required ingredients for a coherent and engrossing narrative, including credible motivation for Ellie's secret involvement in the case when her boyfriend, CSPD Lieutenant Peter Miller, seems to be doing a fine job investigating. Though often clever and amusing, this farfetched premise and caricatured cast yield mostly mish-M*A*S*H. ( July )