Jane Lawless has just broken up with her lover and is barely recovered from injuries suffered in her last adventure (Hunting the Witch), but that doesn't stop her from accompanying her pal Cordelia to the rundown but still magnificent Connecticut estate known as Innishannon. It is there that Cordelia's estranged sister, actress Octavia Thorne, is about to marry the reclusive but legendary movie director Roland Lester. Cordelia may be her best friend, but Lawless, the Minneapolis restaurateur-sleuth who's starred in several Ellen Hart cozies, has no idea why the Thorne sisters have been strangers to each other since their mother's death eight years before. And Cordelia herself is just as baffled by Octavia's reasons for marrying the 80- year-old Lester.

A mansion full of picaresque characters keeps the reader guessing after first Lester and then the young documentary producer who's on hand to chronicle the wedding (and, incidentally, to solve the mystery of her own grandfather's murder in the long-ago Hollywood days when he and Lester knew each other) are murdered. Most of the guests had a motive: Gracie, the young Internet entrepreneur whose plans to turn Innishannon into a huge theme park--Gracieland--will be drastically reduced if Olivia inherits after she marries Lester; Verna Lange, the faded but still glamorous actress who costarred with Lew Wallace in Roland Lester's greatest hits back in the '50s; Christian Wallace, Lew's son and Gracie's lover; and Hiram Thorne, Octavia and Cordelia's father, who knows a secret about his daughter's fiancé that may derail the couple's plans.

This deft, well-written mystery is light on blood and gore but heavy on Hollywood history and gossip. Did you know that Clark Gable's leading ladies hated to kiss him because of his denture breath? Hart has done her homework and turned in another smart, lively page-turner that will delight her many fans and probably win her some new ones, especially those who enjoy tales of Tinseltown in its heyday. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Minneapolis-based restaurateur-sleuth Jane Lawless is out of her element in this so-so mystery, the 10th in the series (after 1999's Hunting the Witch). Jane accompanies her best friend, Cordelia Thorn, to an isolated mansion on the Connecticut coast to attend the hastily arranged marriage of Cordelia's younger sister, Octavia, a Broadway actress, to 83-year-old Roland Lester, a reclusive millionaire movie director. Among the handful of friends and relatives in attendance is documentary filmmaker Ellie Saks, who is at work on a profile of the great director himself--one that threatens to reveal Hollywood secrets of yesteryear. When Roland collapses during the ceremony and dies shortly after of poisoning, suspicion falls on a number of the guests--not least Octavia. Jane's sympathetic nature invites the confidences of others, and her understanding of human nature makes her good at putting the pieces of a mystery together. But the book suffers from a lack of a clear narrative focus, and the characters are clich‚d--none, except for the flamboyant Cordelia, quite comes alive. Uninterrupted stretches of dialogue and online research substitute for character development and investigation. What sets this book apart is the candor with which key characters deal with homosexuality and face the ugly ways they've behaved under the pressure of McCarthyism and the strict moral codes of the past. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Minneapolis restauranteur Jane Lawless (Hunting the Witch), best friend Cordelia, and Cordelia's sister Octavia visit NewYork City, where Octavia intends to marry an 80-year old, extremely rich film director. When they arrive, however, the director is missing, and Octavia becomes suspect number one. Another fascinating case for Lawless. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Hart's latest, following her Lambda award-winning Hunting the Witch (1999), can't seem to make up its mind whether it's a murder mystery or a drama of dysfunctional, alcoholic family relations. Where has the delightfully irrepressible character Cordelia Thorn gone, and who is this weepy imposter taken up with sister fights and father confrontations? Why erase her comic, madcap ways that made her such an appealing sidekick to staid heroine Jane Lawless? There's far too little of Jane and way too much of the Thorns as Jane and Cordelia attend the Christmastime wedding of Cordelia's estranged younger sister, Octavia. She's to marry a much older man, legendary film director Roland Lester, despite her sister's reservations and their alcoholic father's outright contempt. Along with the housekeeper and an odd assortment of guests, they're camped out in Roland's decaying mansion when he's murdered just moments before the vows. Plucky Jane investigates, bravely gimping around on her cane through the snow, an image many of Hart's fans will remember while awaiting the next in this popular detective series. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jane Lawless is a woman at a crossroads - her lover has left, she has finally recovered from a vicious attack sustained last year, and the holidays are closing in. With no one to help her ring in the new year, Jane reluctantly agrees to accompany her good friend Cordelia Thorn on a peculiar holiday trip: Cordelia's estranged sister, Broadway star Octavia Thorn, has asked them to attend her wedding.

Octavia getting married is no surprise - she's done it three times before - but her candidate for hubby #4 certainly is. Roland Lester is a reclusive eighty-three-year-old retired Hollywood director, a relic from the golden age of Tinseltown with a controversial past. No one can understand how the two met, much less fell in love. When the bodies start to drop, Jane realizes it might not be love at all that brought the young diva and the aged director together, but something much deeper, and perhaps more sinister.

Delving deep into film history, Jane finds unsettling connections between Roland and a murder that was never solved. Finding out what happened 40 years ago could be the key to unlock the mystery of Octavia's curious marriage, but laying bare such long-buried secrets also promises grave consequences for everyone involved.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Minneapolis-based restaurateur-sleuth Jane Lawless is out of her element in this so-so mystery, the 10th in the series (after 1999's Hunting the Witch). Jane accompanies her best friend, Cordelia Thorn, to an isolated mansion on the Connecticut coast to attend the hastily arranged marriage of Cordelia's younger sister, Octavia, a Broadway actress, to 83-year-old Roland Lester, a reclusive millionaire movie director. Among the handful of friends and relatives in attendance is documentary filmmaker Ellie Saks, who is at work on a profile of the great director himself--one that threatens to reveal Hollywood secrets of yesteryear. When Roland collapses during the ceremony and dies shortly after of poisoning, suspicion falls on a number of the guests--not least Octavia. Jane's sympathetic nature invites the confidences of others, and her understanding of human nature makes her good at putting the pieces of a mystery together. But the book suffers from a lack of a clear narrative focus, and the characters are clich d--none, except for the flamboyant Cordelia, quite comes alive. Uninterrupted stretches of dialogue and online research substitute for character development and investigation. What sets this book apart is the candor with which key characters deal with homosexuality and face the ugly ways they've behaved under the pressure of McCarthyism and the strict moral codes of the past. (Mar. 5) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Minneapolis restauranteur Jane Lawless (Hunting the Witch), best friend Cordelia, and Cordelia's sister Octavia visit NewYork City, where Octavia intends to marry an 80-year old, extremely rich film director. When they arrive, however, the director is missing, and Octavia becomes suspect number one. Another fascinating case for Lawless. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Jolyon Helterman - Out

Like any good mystery, not only is the suspense-filled Merchant of Venus easy to digest in one or two sittings, its prediction-foiling plotline is compelling enough to demand that you do so.

Kirkus Reviews

Lesbian impresario Cordelia Thorn is startled when her much-married sister Octavia, a Broadway star she hasn't spoken to since the death of their mother eight years ago, insists that she attend her latest wedding, this one to octogenarian ex-movie director Roland Lester. With due misgivings, Cordelia agrees, cheering herself up by dragging along her best friend, Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless, who's recovering from a break-in and a flawed relationship with a woman doctor (Hunting the Witch, 1999). When they arrive at Lester's decrepit Connecticut estate, they find in residence his gofer brother Buddy; his grandniece Grace, who thinks she's in line to inherit most everything; documentary filmmaker Ellie Saks, who's skulking around in the dead of night going through Lester's private files; and long-deceased film star Lew Wallace's son Christian, who's been receiving a yearly stipend of $100,000 from Lester for murky reasons. Things finally get into gear with the arrival of fabled star Verna Lang and the Thorn sisters' alcoholic dad. Lester is poisoned, Ellie is bludgeoned, and hetero-, homo-, and bisexual insinuations swirl. The sisters and Jane traipse hither and yon to discover what the key Lester gave Octavia will open—something, he insisted, worth millions. The discovery sparks a conflagration that the girls barely escape, along with the unlucky readers who've followed them this far. A spurious dying message, a card game, a secret formula, much outing of '40s and '50s movie stars, theatrics and bombastics from the sisters, and a mild flirtation for Jane—all add more and more empty calories to the endless nonsense.