The Lavender House Murder

On vacation in Provincetown, Mass., Virginia Kelly, a lesbian African American and the narrator of this often titillating whodunit, discovers a bullet-ridden corpse. The body is that of a gay newspaper writer, Joan Di Maio, who is lying in her own blood, ``black gunpowder tattoos . . . splattered in deco-like accidental paint against the pallor of her skin.'' Di Maio, it turns out, was an ideologically driven reporter who had engaged in the controversial practice of outing--``pulling closeted queers out of their closets.'' She makes for a fascinating predator turned victim, but Baker's ( In the Game ) story line is diffuse and the writing is sometimes clumsy. (``She had that leggy high-breasted look that would make her a wonder at forty when everybody else's equipment had fallen,'' muses the heroine, in a crude parody of Philip Marlowe.) Murder most foul often takes a backseat to ruminations on relationships, which include Kelly's vacation companion, Naomi Wolf; Kelly's one-night stand, referred to only as the ``car girl''; and a middle-aged woman nicknamed Sam, who runs the lesbian hotel of the title. Provincetown Sheriff Edward Harmon makes brief appearances, but this would-be mystery is strictly girl talk. (Aug.)