Ross M. (Parrothead) reviewed on 7/11/2006 + 533 more book reviews

Pretty photographer Maggie Holloway begins Clark's latest (after Silent Night) lying in a coffin buried in a grave, pulling desperately at a string that leads to a bell with no clapper. How she got there is the essence of a convoluted tale of a ritzy Newport, R.I., retirement home whose well-heeled residents seem to die with alarming frequency, leading to high-profit turnover of their apartments there. Latest to shed her mortal coil was Maggie's much-loved stepmother, a fact that led intrepid Maggie to take an unwise amount of interest in the deaths-and also to question why several of the graves seemed to have little funerary bells on them. As usual with Clark, there is a stalwart admirer whose love does not immediately speak its name, and a surfeit of suspicious characters, including a scholarly funeral nut, a shady investment broker, a venal lawyer, a drunken, inept doctor and a nosy nurse. There's some fun in the sprightly Newport oldsters, and the many scenes and characters are shifted around smoothly and with a practiced hand. The bells gimmick seems no more than that, however, and the book is light on thrills-though there's nothing to put off Clark's myriad fans.
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