This sounds right up my alley -- and a few of you will also find it of interest, I'm sure!
Grammar Police By CHELSEA CAIN
DANGEROUS ADMISSIONS Secrets of a Closet Sleuth. By Jane O?Connor.
353 pp. Avon/HarperCollins Publishers. Paper, $13.95.
Dangerous Admissions? is Jane O?Connor?s first adult novel, but anyone who is either 4 or lives with a 4-year-old will probably be familiar with her as the author of the best-selling ?Fancy Nancy? books.
Children like Fancy Nancy because she wears a tiara. Parents like her because she uses big words. O?Connor?s adult protagonist, Rannie Bookman, also uses big words. She?s a freelance copy editor. She does not wear a tiara.
Rannie used to work for Simon & Schuster but got booted after she omitted the ?L? from the last word in the title of a collectors? edition of the first Nancy Drew mystery, ?The Secret of the Old Clock.? Now, while she?s busy copy-editing a book about Josef Mengele, the college-admissions director at her son?s private school is found dead. The school is Chaps, short for Chapel School, ?a glowering, turreted hulk the color of chewed gum.? The admissions director is Mr. Tutwiler, a beloved and loathed institution known as Mr. Tut, whose death pallor is ?like skim milk.?
Rannie, whose life as ?a 43-year-old dangling participle? is so without purpose that she?s reduced to giving tours at her son?s school, can?t help getting caught up in the investigation.
Meanwhile, the ?SWAK? killer is also on the loose, murdering women and then covering their mouths with duct tape bearing a lipstick ?kiss.? The Upper West Side has never been so dangerous.
The book recovers from an awkward start. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, many of them narcissistic, crass teenage twits. (Sorry. That?s my public schooling rearing its ugly head. I meant ?future upstanding leaders of America.?) But O?Connor gets the story rolling and treats us to a neat little murder mystery. It?s hard not to love a book in which grammar features as a clue to the identity of a killer.
O?Connor gets good mileage out of Rannie?s knack for copy-editing. She?s continually correcting other characters? word usage. When Rannie is abandoned at the beginning of a date, she consoles herself by reviewing her potential love interest?s use of ?real important.? When a parent touring Chaps says she felt ?badly? about Mr. Tut?s death, Rannie mentally berates her: ?Bad. You felt bad. If you have a defective sense of touch, then you feel badly.?
Grammarians, rejoice. You finally have your own sleuth.
But O?Connor isn?t afraid of sentence fragments or the odd lowercase proper noun. She punctuates the narrative with an array of textual gimmicks, including instant messages, newspaper articles, cellphone transcripts, e-mail messages, and a growing number of invitations to memorial services. Although reading text messages and I.M.?s is like trying to decipher vanity plates (2 hard, pls u r hurting my head), the approach works, peppering in clues and allowing the reader to do some independent gumshoe work.
As Rannie gets closer to the killer, receives threats and tries to protect her son from the long arm of the law, she takes time to get jiggy with another Chaps parent. (Remember the date who misused ?real?? Rannie was willing to forgive the gaffe.) Let?s just say that O?Connor, who has written more than 30 children?s books, proves her adult chops, and reinforces the fact that copy editors do it all with style.
?You had to keep poking around, didn?t you?? the killer asks Rannie in a final confrontation. She?s a copy editor. It?s an occupational hazard.
So is the ?lethally sharpened Col-Erase blue pencil? that Rannie is always fingering. You can bet that, like Chekhov?s gun, it will appear before the end of the last act. The wait? It?s worth it.
Chelsea Cain is the author of the novel ?Confessions of a Teen Sleuth.? Her next book, ?Heartsick,? a thriller, will be published next month.