WITH A KISS I DIE

Lured from the North Shore town of Cliffside to help rescue a
Boston Romeo and Juliet on life support, theatrically invested
ex-cop Edwina “Sully” Sullivan finds the star-crossed lovers upstaged
by a pair of real-life stranglings.

The story is that the French director the Bay Repertory Theater
brought in for their new production of the old chestnut has left because
of a family emergency, but he’s actually been fired over notions ranging
from the perverse (the sets, the props, and the costumes are all in glossy
white) to the perverted (Capulet has the hots for his own daughter). Now that
rehearsals have already begun, Bay Rep director Babs Allyn sends a distress
signal to Cliffside artistic director Dimitri Traietti, who grabs the reins but
is clearly struggling. So Babs asks whether Sully can spare Cliffside stage
manager Connie Reed to lend him a hand—and whether, while she’s at it, she can
drive Connie down and stand by to help out herself. Sully arrives in plenty of
time to run into Kate Smythe, her ex-husband Gus Knight’s partner in law and
love, and to attend a party at the University Club at which Babs memorably
crosses swords with philanthropist Mimi Cunningham. The next morning, one of
the two antagonists is dead, and the Boston cops, including Sully’s own
ex-partner, soon begin making noises about how odd it is that Gus has
disappeared. All this kerfuffle leaves Romeo and Juliet in the
dust, both its romantic lovers and the vexing difficulties of the current
production upstaged by Cliffside treasurer Eric Whitehall and his sister, Emma,
whose family played such a leading role in Sully’s first case (A Christmas
Peril, 2017), and by an undistinguished supporting cast.

Despite a surprising next-to-last-minute twist, the author
doesn’t plot as if her heart were in it, and the promise of juicy backstage
intrigue is never fulfilled. You’ll be happy to hear, though, that the
production goes off without a hitch in the closing pages.