| Lori L. Lake
Reviews The Merchant of Venus by Ellen Hart |
 The Merchant of Venus by Ellen Hart St. Martin’s Minotaur 2002, $13.95 400 Pages ISBN: 0312289057 | This is
Minneapolis
restaurateur Jane Lawless’s tenth mystery outing, and the
novels keep
getting increasingly complex, not to mention more intricately plotted.
Jane is still recovering from injuries suffered the previous fall when
she was nearly killed, and in this book, she is more vulnerable than
she has ever been in any of the previous books. She and her best buddy,
Cordelia, travel to upstate Connecticut to an old mansion, Innishannon,
to attend the wedding of Cordelia’s estranged sister,
Octavia, a stage
actress who caught the attention of the living legend, Roland Lester.
He’s an 82-year-old movie director, a millionaire, and a man
with
multiple secrets including one that goes all the way back to 1957 when
his best friend and purported lover, Lew Wallace, was shot in a murder
that was never solved. Is this the kind of man Octavia should be
marrying? Can Cordelia and Octavia put aside eight years worth of
differences and reconcile? And what about the zany cast of characters
rattling around at Innishannon? Roland’s brother, a
grand-niece,
Lew Wallace’s son, the housekeeper, and a documentary
filmmaker on site
all have their own secrets to hide, too. Soon enough, there are more
killings, and it is unclear whether they are connected to the past
murders or not. I loved the references to the movies. Hart has taken the time to flesh out a mix of made up characters with the real-life stories about Hollywood legends such as Loretta Young, John Wayne, Clark Gable, George Cukor, and many more. Along with that, Cordelia’s humor—and even Jane’s occasional wry sense of humor—was entertaining. It didn’t make for laugh-out-loud yucks, but Cordelia’s exaggeration and her sparring with her sister had this reviewer grinning fairly regularly. For readers who have followed the Lawless mysteries since their 1989 inception, Hart continues to build upon the relationships and storylines from the previous nine books, but anyone could pick this novel up, read it out of order, and still be perfectly at home in the world that Hart creates. Highly recommended for all lovers of mystery, and especially for those who enjoy sub-plots of growth and change for the main character along the lines of fiction by Nevada Barr, Carolyn Wheat, Sue Grafton, and Marcia Muller. |  Lori L.
Lake is a
consistent and prolific reviewer for The Independent Gay Writer. She is
also author of these books: Different
Dress, Gun
Shy, Under
The Gun,
and Ricochet
In Time,
all published by Regal Crest
Enterprises/RAP, Inc. Lori is also
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