Laura Levine, Death By Pantyhose

Death By Pantyhose

Laura Levine

Kensington, June 2007, $22.00, 256 pp.

ISBN 0758207859

Freelance writer Jaine Austen is going through a dry spell and desperately needs a job. When stand up comic Dorcas in answer to Jaine's ad in the newspaper calls her up to see if she would write material for her, the near bankrupt author reluctantly agrees. The comic's trade signature is that she throws pantyhose into the audience at the end of her show.

At their first meeting Jaine sees Vic, a comic who is really funny, heckling Dorcas from his seat at the deli where they all meet. He doesn't ease his harassment when Jaine goes to the Laff Palace to see Dorcas perform. Dorcas bombs but Vic is really funny thanks to his writer Hank. At the end of his act, Vic announces that he signed a network pilot deal with his new agent Reagan Dixon who he intends to marry. In that moment, there are three people who are furious with him including his agent who was with him from the very beginning, the woman he lives with, and the female he is having an affair with. Dorcas goes berserk and starts strangling him. She stops before she kills him but the next day Jaine sees in the news paper that Dorcas was arrested for killing Vic with a pair of her pantyhose and the police caught her standing over to body. Jaine doesn't believe Dorcas is the killer so she investigates starting with the three suspects who had reason to hate the victim.

Laura Levine pens a humorous amateur sleuth mystery that is enjoyable and entertaining, the perfect beach read. The heroine endears herself to her audience with her conversations with her cat Prozac, her e-mails from her parents and her asides to the readers. Though her reasons for sleuthing seems like ripped nylons, this fast-paced tale with colorful and eccentric characters, including the heroine and an abundance of suspects with viable motives come together to make DEATH BY PANTY HOSE a wonderful reading experience.

Harriet Klausner