Margin for Murder (First Edition)

The prime suspect in the murder of her boss, over whose dead body she was found standing, Aphra Colquhoun has just three weeks to clear her name--and survive attacks by the real killer

Although this first novel is set in a London publishing house and involves the murder of an executive there, it could have been set anywhere, so scant is the book's publishing atmosphere. The author seems more interested in financial matters than in character development, including that of her heroine, one-eyed Aphra Colquhoun, 29, whose past, we learn, contains a deep secret. Aphra has been a commissioning editor at Gilman Press for just three months when Adrian Lynch, the editorial director, abruptly tells her that she must share more responsibility with her assistant, the obnoxious James Cook. That's unacceptable to Aphra, but before she can register an effective protest, Adrian is murdered in his office and she is discovered standing over his body. Freed on police bond, she has only three weeks to prove her innocence. Meanwhile she begins to receive threatening notes. After many misfires, her amateur detective work pays off but only through a series of hard-to-believe contrivances.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A competent debut, set in the London publishing world, begins with the murder of Gilman Press editorial director Adrian Lynch, whose body is discovered by newly hired editor Aphra Colquhoun, who then becomes the CID's chief suspect--largely because she'd once been convicted of murder (committed in self-defense, actually, and she lost an eye in the fight). Desperate to prove herself innocent, Aphra asks for help from her flatmates and a journalist friend (whose ``interview'' notes pop up regularly--the author's way, it seems, of presenting information). Soon, they're all awash in an insider-trading scam, rival publishers courting an American author, and the pain of unwed-motherhood. Furthermore, someone is sending Aphra scary letters; her publisher clearly wants to fire her; and she winds up in the hospital after her bike is tinkered with. One more will die before Aphra and chums can sort out the murderers from the blackmailers from the mischief-makers. Well-placed clues, but uneven character development--and Adams relies too heavily on those journalist ``notes.'' Still, a respectable first effort. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.