Catherine O'Connell, Well Bred and Dead

Well Bred and Dead

Catherine O'Connell

HarperCollins, January 2007, $13.95

ISBN: 0061122157

Chicago socialite Pauline Cook remains shocked, not just because she found his body. She understands grieving the death of her best friend, high society writer Ethan Campbell, but she cannot comprehend why he committed suicide, especially in a T-shirt, as he knew the importance of a proper exit. She also wonders how she was so oblivious, as she saw no signs of his distress.

Pauline needs to know the answers to those questions for her well being, so she looks around Ethan's apartment for clues, where she finds a birth certificate with the name Daniel Kehoe on it. The determined Pauline follows up on that name, until evidence sends her to England where she meets Irishman Terrance Sullivan. However, the mission continues, as she follows the clues this time to Boston, and on to Rochester where she meets Daniel's half-sister. This leads her to Charleston, where she begins to believe that her Ethan killed the original Ethan. Heartbroken, even with Terrance accompanying her, Pauline goes home, where an estate bounty hunter insists her Ethan was the illegitimate son of a late wealthy Bostonian man who left him a fortune that she will inherit. Suddenly wealthy, Pauline decides a trip to Paris is just the thing to enable her to move on; except everything comes full circle when she encounters her immediate past in France.

WELL BRED AND DEAD is a terrific amateur sleuth thriller that may be the debut mystery of the year. The storyline amusingly looks at high society, whose mavens believe image is everything, and so do almost anything, including spin doctoring to maintain the veneer of an affluent lifestyle, even when the credit cards are beyond the max. The why issue is cleverly designed so that the readers need to accompany Pauline on her oceanic journey, while the final twist that answers the key question will stun the audience, yet seem so right.