Fiction, Fact, and Murder: A Dutch and Liza Randolph Mystery

A slow start and an unsatisfying solution to the crimes mar this adult fiction debut by the author of the children's Supergranny series. Middle-aged Chicagoans Dutch and Liza Randolph visit Liza's home state of West Virginia, where she is one of three authors selected to receive an achievement award at a local college. The other recipients are two Pulitzer Prize winners: Coco, a confrontational feminist author, and Wyatt, an investigative reporter. Liza is leery about seeing her onetime friend Coco, because Coco has recently written a derisive magazine article on mixed-race adoption, which Liza, who adopted a daughter of mixed-race, took personally. When all meet for dinner the first night, Coco and Wyatt argue in a manner that suggests they have had a secret connection in the past. Meanwhile, Coco's first husband, abandoned long before CoCo achieved fame, sets up camp outside of town and plots revenge. When Wyatt is murdered, and then Coco dies, Liza and Dutch work with delightful rapport to determine if Coco killed Wyatt, then herself, or if she, too, was murdered. (Nov.)