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D'Amato, Barbara

Hard Evidence

New York, Scribner (Simon & Schuster). 256 pp. $22.00.

Angelotti and Spencer are not just owners of another store struggling desperately to compete with every ordinary supermarket. What they own is a gigantic delicatessen. They sell every food anyone might want, and everything is of the best. They throw out twenty-seven percent of their cheeses because they go past sale date.

Cat Marsala (our sleuth) is having Sam, her semi-significant other, to dinner. Apart from Sam's dinner there is a bone for Dapper. But Sam confiscates the bone. He is a doctor and he's recognized a human bone. The bone came from Angelotti and Spencer's. The mayor, the cops, everyone is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. To announce publicly what happened would ruin a Chicago institution. In a democratic society people have a right to know.

Cat Marsala is friendly with all parties and is employed to sleuth. Which she does fairly successfully, till she goes into the lion's den thinking that she has sufficient backup but the backup fails her. Fortunately, there is a frozen body with which to defend themselves. Cat is saved to sleuth another day. The book ends with a proposal from Sam, but as she starts listing his good points she realizes that listing someone's good points is a distancing process.

A comic mystery with recipes, lots about good food and some neat observations in favor of vegetarians.

Barbara D'Amato is the president of Mystery Writers of America and also writes musical comedies.