The Scent of Murder: A Robin Light Mystery - Hardcover

Last seen in In Plain Sight , Block's Robin Light seems unable to avoid murder, no matter how hard she tries to mind her own business, which happens to be a pet store in Syracuse called Noah's Ark. When a young girl comes into the store and demands that Robin board her pet ferret because Murphy said she would, Robin is speechless. Murphy, her husband who died of a drug overdose and left behind a mess that made Robin a chief murder suspect, has again risen from the dead. But before she can find out more, the girl drops her ferret and bolts out the back, just as two cops arrive in pursuit. Thus begins yet another intricately plotted mystery, this one involving the girl's murdered father and a connection to one more part of Murphy's life about which Robin knew nothing. Block's gripping denouements are especially good: they have previously starred a poisonous snake, a tarantula, and a bat. This one extends the streak, but this time we're not revealing the animal involved. Robin Light was recently named one of Booklist's Top Five Lesser-Known Female Sleuths . Soon she will have outgrown that category. Stuart Miller

Just because Amy Richmond is the daughter of Robin Light's late, unlamented husband Murphy doesn't give her any excuse for dragging Robin (In Plain Sight, 1996, etc.) into the mess she's made. The fun begins when Amy bolts Robin's pet store one step ahead of the Syracuse cops after leaving Robin with her albino ferret, Mr. Bones, but gets darker fast when Robin finds Amy's stepfather, casket manufacturer Dennis Richmond, murdered (``at least the poor guy would have a fancy coffin''), with Amy the obvious suspect. The homicidally fractious Richmond family is obviously behind the following carnival of crime--two break-ins, a warehouse explosion, a kidnapping, a hidden envelope full of diamonds, and enough drugs to keep the Woodstock Nation mellow for a month--but which of them is the perp? Sadly, the Richmonds aren't different enough to make you care which of them has made harried Robin (who'll need all the help she can get from her improbable network of lowlife helpers) switch back from bubble gum to Camels. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.