What Evil Lurks

This pleasantly updated but still old-fashioned cozy stars retired radio personality Lavina London, who, introduced in the paperback original Grave Undertaking, here makes her hardcover debut. Henry Blaine, star with his late wife of a 1940s radio soap opera, is found dead in his Catskills home after throwing a farewell bash celebrating his upcoming move to Canada. Lavina proves it was murder and sets out for New York City for clues among the many old radio figures who had attended the party. There is no shortage of suspects, for Henry, whose son Garrett is short of funds, was little loved and not above blackmail. In Manhattan, another radio player is killed and Lavina nearly loses her own life, before the redoubtable sleuth uncovers the secret behind the murders. Reaching into the long-ago era when radio was king, McCahery creates a sympathetic detective of a certain age in this diverting, if undemanding, mystery. (Jan.)