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ENTER DYING
by Noreen Wald
Berkley Prime Crime, September 2002
192 pages
ISBN: 0425186393


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Despite her mother's upcoming wedding, ghostwriter Jake O'Hara has been called in to make major fixes to an upcoming Broadway musical. The aging star, Elaine Eden, orders Jake to make her character have more oomph. Jake doesn't like Elaine, but feels compelled to investigate when the star's dead body falls from a prop onto the stage.

There is no shortage of suspects as Elaine never bothered to make herself popular. Even her fiance, Philip Knight, immediately replaces Elaine in his show and his personal life with a younger, more talented actress, Morgan Drake. Elaine's three times ex-husband, Sebastian James, is the male lead in the show and has hated Elaine since their last marriage ended. When Elaine and Sebastian first wed, his first wife committed suicide and their daughter disappeared. Any one of three young ladies in the show might be the missing daughter with good reason to hate her father's second wife.

Enter Dying is the fifth Ghostwriter mystery by Noreen Wald. It stands on its own, though there are a lot of recurring characters and situtations that make it preferable to read the earlier books first. Memorable characters include Gypsy Rose, a psychic friend of Jake and her mother, and the members of the writers' group to which Jake belongs.

Wald is good at writing light and zippy dialogue. She also has an excellent sense of place in New York City and the Broadway crowd. The plot is so-so, and leads to the book's major flaw. It ended so abruptly that at first I thought my copy was missing pages. Being a short book anyway, it could have used one of those final scenes where the characters talk over all that has happened and round up the loose ends. Overall, Enter Dying is a good light read.

Reviewed by Mary A. Axford, October 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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