From Publishers Weekly:
When your sleuth is a stand-up comic, your story had better be drop-dead funny, but the routine here is only that. Cooper has been funny before--in Houston in the Rear View Mirror , for example--but then she was also laconic, playing on an effective nostalgia for a simple Southern lifestyle. Here she introduces diminutive, plucky comedian Kimmey Kruse, who finds herself on a bill with an old flame, Cab Neusberg, at Chicago's Kaiser Komedy Klub. During the course of their reignited passion, Cab snuffs it, leaving Kimmey looking like either a murder weapon or a suspect. When the autopsy reveals death was due to a massive dose of digitalis, Kimmey and Chicago detective Sal Pucci narrow the list of suspects to the denizens of the Komedy Klub's "green-room," a crowd of gofers, agents and others with widely disparate talents and ego sizes. The plot is serviceable, but Cooper's evocation of the Windy City is lackluster and the anticipated witfest falls flat (the supposedly bad jokes that everyone offers Kimmey are as good as anything she, the professional, comes up with). Cooper might give her regular hero, Texas cop Milton Kovak, a callback.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews:
Cooper, author of a well-regarded series featuring Oklahoma Sheriff Milt Kovak (Other People's Houses, etc.), introduces Kimmy Kruse, a pint-sized stand-up comic from Texas, playing this week at Chicago's Kaiser Komedy Klub. On the same bill are Joey Scarlotti; Babe Marsh, who's grossly obese and does fat jokes; Bobby Rivers; M.C. Mickey Reynolds, and rising star Cab Nausberg. Cab and Kimmy are hotly at work renewing their old affair when Cab dies--in an instant--poisoned. For a while Kimmy is Detective Pucci's #1 suspect, until Reynolds is found with his neck broken, an impossible feat for petite Kimmy, and Pucci's investigations turn up more dead comedians--all connected to an Atlanta gig months before. Kimmy, once an insurance investigator, throws some good tips Pucci's way--and by the time the case is solved, with Kimmy's life on the line, they're sharing more than clues. A rambling plot with unconvincing motivation is helped some by perky, if plentifully profane, narration, a more-than-casual take on a popular entertainment phenomenon, and a heroine who could grow on you. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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