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Kissing Cousins is one of those tv sitcoms that won't die, but a lot of its cast members seem to be less lucky recently. At least that's according to obsessed fan Vincent, and freelance entertainment reporter Tilda Harper has generally found Vincent's help and information to be invaluable for her work on her favorite series of articles, 'Where are they Now', stories of the once highly-praised stars who have fallen a bit from their peak of popularity (usually, they've fallen quite a lot). Tilda's a fan of tv trivia as well, but with one exception she's more moderate in her transports over the characters, the stories, and the actors; Cousins is that exception. While only moderately popular when it first aired for three years in the 1970s, it became a cult hit in later decades, when Tilda and many other fans bonded emotionally with the cast, especially Mercy, an early Goth-type version of a wild-child. Despite diligent research, the usually very effective Tilda finds herself unable to obtain any information about Mercy's current whereabouts, and sadly goes produces her article anyway. That was several months ago. Now the cast members seem to be dying off under suspicious circumstances, and Tilda fears her article might be connected to their deaths. Repeated efforts fail to turn up any hint of Mercy's present location, and it becomes clear that she seems to have disappeared less than a year after the tv show ended, about thirty years ago. Mercy was Tilda's role model, and she is determined to find the actress. Continuing to poke and prod, interviewing the surviving cast members, turning over many slimy show business rocks in the process, Tilda remains without Mercy. And if that's not bad enough, Vincent becomes convinced that Mercy is next in line to be killed, and quite soon. This is a well-plotted, strongly characterized first-in-series entry, with an amateur sleuth I enjoyed. Tilda is human and decently nice without too much cutsey sweetness'n'light, and while there are a couple of really hunky guys close at hand there wasn't too much romance for my taste, with a generally wryly funny tone throughout. The only (mild) difficulty I had was that I never related very well to the fictional sitcom, even though it, the characters and, especially, the actors, were well-written, and behaved enjoyably over-the-top at times. It might simply be that I didn't feel as carried along into the plot as fully as I wanted to be because I never cared much for kid-centric family sit-coms a.la Family Ties or Seventh Heaven, though I do enjoy showbiz trivia. I dearly wanted to comprehend Tilda's mindset and that of the many intense fans of the show as it seemed necessary to buy into the plot, but somehow never quite got it. Kelner raises some interesting questions concerning celebrity status and how it can impact on various sorts of people; while these threads seemed promising they are not followed up, and a generally light tone predominates. However, her writing is smooth, professional, and carefully structured, and overall this was a very entertaining mystery. Plus there's a totally over-the-top ending that was a lot of fun upon first viewing, um, reading, although on reflection it felt contrived, unlike much of what had come before it. Thus my over all rating for WITHOUT MERCY is ‛very good', and I'd recommend it to those who enjoy mysteries with trivia of all sorts but especially television-related, reporters-as-detectives, Hollywood dirt, Boston locales and folks, and a gently sarcastic, nicely light touch. And there was a bonus: fairly early on I began to suspect the person who turned out to be the murderer, and almost gave up hope for something exciting at the finale, but there was a last (very funny) twist that completely (and quite unusually) surprised me! Wonderful. However, I do hope that Kelner decides to give her wit a bit of a darker edge next time - she's certainly capable of mining richer emotional content. I am now looking forward to reading and reviewing the second-in-series WHO KILLED THE PINUP QUEEN (January 2010) very soon - WITHOUT MERCY was fun.
Reviewed by Abbey Hamilton, December 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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