The Well-Heeled Murders

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I found this is in a toy store...
Review: About a year ago, I was shopping in an area of Baltimore called Fell's Point. In a bin full of books in front of a toy store on Thames Street was a thin book that's shoe fetish theme struck me as funny. I gave them a dollar and bought the uncorrected proofs of "The Well Heeled Murders." It sat on my shelf for months until one day, bored out of my mind, I decided to open it up. It was amazing! I never read a mystery before, let alone a lesbian one, and I was very impressed. Buy this book. It is well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing mystery for fans of the genre
Review: Morgan McRain is not a detective, but undoubtably she has seen enough episodes of Murder, She Wrote to know the basic routines of searching for clues and deducing the guilty party from a list of suspects. So when the office mate of a colleague is found dead and barefoot on her psychiatric couch--the victim of a very resilient pair of pantyhose--Morgan quickly shifts her therapy practice to the backburner, puts on her imaginary houndstooth cap and joins the hunt for the murderer, revealing in the process the seamier side of a few licensed professionals.

The Well-Heeled Murders could pass for a treatment of a politically-correct MSW script--had Jessica Fletcher been a lesbian with a life partner, daughter, and homosexual "brother-in-law"/nanny. However, the addition of a green detective, Sam Reynolds, with the hots for the male nanny (how convenient!) and a subplot involving the murderer's apparent shoe fetish and a tight-knit groups of swingers, and the story is given a twist of which would incite the envious natures of Aaron Spelling.

Morgan, having maintained some degree of civility with members of the exclusive swingers group (so exclusive it doesn't have a name) of which the victim was a member, agrees to assist Sam in tracking the killer, and eventually outshines the detective in both the brawn and brain departments. Hartman makes it clear that this is Morgan's case from the beginning--certain chapters even lend the possibility that Morgan is a bit more determined than the entire Portland, Oregon police force to catch the killer, and that Sam is just around to bounce off dialogue and flirt with the brother-in-law.

Hartman has the potential of creating an interesting mystery series with the Morgan McRain character--Morgan is witty, sensible, and has the same scrappy, down-to-earth charm that has endeared readers to the likes of Kinsey Millhone and V. I. Warshawski.