Murder at the Kennedy Center

Likely to follow Truman's eight earlier mysteries up the bestseller lists, her ninth opens with a grand performance at the Kennedy Center honoring Senator Ewald, favored to win his party's nomination for president. But hopes dim after the extravaganza when Professor MacKenzie (Mac) Smith finds an Ewald campaign worker, Andrea Feldman, shot dead behind the Center. The senator's son Paul, who has been sexually involved with Andrea, is arrested for the murder, whereupon his wife, Janet, disappears. As a professor of law and Ewald's friend, Mac uses his skills to investigate those in Ewald's orbit. The suspects include the senator's wife, Leslie, his campaign manager, Ed Farmer, and a host of others capable of murder so as to cause a scandal ruinous to the candidate. At last, Mac penetrates the mystery, thickly layered in the complexities of Washington political processes, once again brought vividly to life by Truman's expertise. Literary Guild main selection. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Workmanlike ninth outing for Truman, which finds staff-worker Andrea Feldman shot in the bushes following a gala in support of liberal presidential hopeful Senator Ken Ewald. Family friend and Georgetown law professor Mac Smith is summoned for ""damage control"" because Ewald's registered gun was the murder weapon; his married son Paul had had an affair with the girl; Paul's wife has disappeared; and the conservative forces of rival Senator Backus, evangelist Kane, and ousted Panamanian dictator Morales are gleefully licking their chops. Abetted by ex-cop Tony Buffolino and girlfriend Annie, Mac traces the victim's ties to past indiscretions of Ewald's, a shyster blackmailer, and a right-wing organization (to which Andrea reported the senator's activities). Buffolino's legwork in S.F. and Annie's in N.Y. culminate in Mac's accusing the guilty party in the Ewalds' stately redbrick Georgetown home--in time for the senator to head for a fancy dinner where a Morales' assassin takes a shot at him, although he lives to vote another day. Once again: many Washington travelogue snippets; flat, move-the plot-along-but-pad-the-pages dialogue; and a romantic couple to root for. Included also are simplistic political-system explanations, with both left and right factions showing as failed heroes. Ranks middle to low in the series. Vote no. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.