Clark's books are always megahits, and her fans love the nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat suspense that is her trademark. So it's a little surprising that this collection of six interrelated stories featuring Willy and Alvirah Meehan lacks Clark's usual energy and pizzazz. The Meehans, who first appeared in Clark's Weep No More, My Lady, have struck it rich in the lottery. No longer do they slave away at housecleaning (Alvirah) and plumbing (Willy). Their days are spent pursuing the hedonistic pleasures of the idle rich, although, to their credit, Alvirah and Willy haven't lost touch with their roots. Alvirah seems to have a "talent" for murder, both for being in the general vicinity when one occurs and for uncloaking the villain before anyone else. For readers who enjoy the nouveau riche approach to crime solving ({ }a la Jonathan and Jennifer Hart or Nick and Nora Charles), these stories may prove mildly entertaining, but because they're so short, there's little opportunity for any real development of motive, plot, or character. And while the Meehans are basically nice, easy-to-like folks, the stories about their escapades are flat, facile, and distinctly lacking in suspense. Still, the Clark name ensures demand, and with a 500,000-copy first printing, you can be sure Simon & Schuster plans a full-throttle promotional effort. Buy accordingly. Emily Melton
From Kirkus Reviews
Six clean-cut criminal adventures for Alvirah Meehan, the $40- million-lottery-winning cleaning lady from Weep No More, My Lady, and her husband, Willy, who no longer sends bills for his plumbing jobs. Their homecoming to New York City in the first story is eventful, since Willy's playwright nephew is arrested for killing an importunate actress in their own Central Park South apartment, with Alvirah discovering both ``The Body in the Closet'' and the telltale clue. ``Death on the Cape'' asks why, and on whose behalf, the witness who sent Cynthia Rogers to prison for murder 12 years ago perjured himself. In the most inventive tale, ``A Clean Sweep,'' Alvirah takes up arms for a recent divorce who claims her ex-husband dumped her so that he could redeem the joint lottery ticket he ``lost'' with his new wife. The title story shows a diamond thief returning to Alvirah's beloved Cypress Point Spa in Pebble Beach, Calif., to kill the man who hired him to perform a fraudulent robbery. Clark's heart isn't really in the details of plotting whodunits like this, but the remaining two stories of kidnapping (a neighbor's baby is snatched in ``Bye, Baby Bunting,'' Willy himself in ``Plumbing for Willy''), which ought to be closer to her home turf, are even thinner. After all, what chance do kidnappers stand when Willy's already fixed their plumbing, and Sister Cordelia and Sister Maeve Marie--who also happen to be his biological sisters--are patrolling the streets inches away from their lair, a Hell's Kitchen flophouse where Alvirah can hire on as a room-service waitress? What lingers in the memory are Clark's paeans to the kind of high-end bourgeois consumerism satirized by Bret Easton Ellis: not just brand-name products and generic crime-fighting gadgets, but the wholesome attitudes her relentlessly upbeat couple has been packaged to sell. (First printing of 500,000; Literary Guild main selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
