Book Review: Birthday Party

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Birthday Party     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Marne Davis Kellogg
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Government Agency
Series: Lilly Bennett # 5
Doubleday, Dec 1999, $21.95, 272 pp.

Recently married Lilly Bennett remains a U.S. Marshal and private investigator. Her offices are located in the family's tourist trap in Fort Bennett. Lilly loves the open spaces of the west that seems to be vanishing as the dreaded developers gobble up the land. The foremost developer is the A.L. Johnson company headed by Adelaide Johnson.

Adelaide is being honored with a reception at the Round-Up Country Club when a commando kills her assistant Clay Parke. The perpetrator escapes in the Bennett helicopter. Next a political member of the clan dies when someone sabotages his plane. Janet Reno gives Lilly forty-eight hours to uncover the assassin before she assigns the case to another agent. Meanwhile members of the Johnson clan are being murdered one by one.

BIRTHDAY PARTY is a whirlwind Marshall Bennett mystery that takes the audience to Vegas, Italy, and elsewhere with little notice. Lilly remains the focus of the tale as she retains her sassy, down to earth persona that obsesses over justice. The mystery is finely drawn, but the characters bring heart to the plot. Though the intended audience is mystery readers, fans of modern day western dramas will gain much pleasure from BIRTHDAY PARTY.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner