The Mirror and the Mask, by Ellen Hart. Minotaur Books, 312 pages, $25.99 hardcover.
The sleuthing in Hart’s 17th mystery featuring Minneapolis restaurant owner Jane Lawless is engaging enough – there’s a murder, a gaggle of plausible prospective suspects, and a search for a stepfather who deserted his family decades earlier. But the real pleasure is the tidy intricacy with which Hart’s characters, some old and some new, overlap and interact. There’s enough back story that anyone coming fresh to the venerable series – a new book almost annually since 1989 – can cozy up to the storyline, including a subplot about Jane’s sidekick Cordelia reconnecting with an adored niece. For veteran readers, there’s a familiar refrain – Jane remains unlucky in love, still recovering from the wrenching collapse of a previous romance. This time around, the object of her eventually unrequited affection is fashion-model-pretty Annie Andrews, a bisexual blonde who lands in town – and into Jane’s life – to search for that missing stepfather. Meanwhile, for readers wanting to visit the early days of this solid, satisfying series, Bella has released two out-of-print titles, Faint Praise and A Small Sacrifice.
by Richard Labonte
