The Lavender House Murder by Nikki Baker

The Lavender House Murder

Nikki Baker

On vacation in Provincetown, Mass., Virginia Kelly, a lesbian African American and the narrator of this often titillating whodunit, discovers a bullet-ridden corpse. The body is that of a gay newspaper writer, Joan Di Maio, who is lying in her own blood, “black gunpowder tattoos . . . splattered in deco-like accidental paint against the pallor of her skin.” Di Maio, it turns out, was an ideologically driven reporter who had engaged in the controversial practice of outing–“pulling closeted queers out of their closets.” She makes for a fascinating predator turned victim, but Baker’s ( In the Game ) story line is diffuse and the writing is sometimes clumsy. (“She had that leggy high-breasted look that would make her a wonder at forty when everybody else’s equipment had fallen,” muses the heroine, in a crude parody of Philip Marlowe.) Murder most foul often takes a backseat to ruminations on relationships, which include Kelly’s vacation companion, Naomi Wolf; Kelly’s one-night stand, referred to only as the “car girl”; and a middle-aged woman nicknamed Sam, who runs the lesbian hotel of the title. Provincetown Sheriff Edward Harmon makes brief appearances, but this would-be mystery is strictly girl talk.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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