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But when one of the convention attendees dies in a suspicious accident, and Roxanne Small turns up at the bottom of a cistern with a severe case of shattered skull, Claire decides that selling books to rabid fans takes second place to ferreting out the unlovely skeletons in the publishing world's closet. A Conventional Corpse finds Claire in typically acerbic form; Joan Hess is a master at presenting a decidedly cockeyed world in precise and amusing language. Claire's opinion of her glibly sarcastic daughter is typical: "Two years until I could pack her off to college, I reminded myself as I closed her door. Or perhaps I could surreptitiously sign her up for the Peace Corps and arrange an assignment to a country in which headhunting was still a popular sport. Or leave her in a basket at the door of a convent in a newly autonomized country such as Azerbaijan--sans passport."
This is the tone that has won Hess many fans, but every character, unfortunately, sounds exactly alike: detectives, authors, innkeepers, vagrants--they all speak in the same voice. The overall effect is one of limited imagination. In addition, the denouement will leave many readers perplexed, renouncing as it does the constraints of logic, motive, and probability. Claire Malloy fans, though, will more than likely be pleased enough with the return of their favorite bookseller to read in a forgiving frame of mind. --Kelly Flynn
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