Avon Twilight (Paperback), ISNB: 0-380-79120-X
Maybe Marti Hirsch plays in Manhattan or Moore's San Francisco home, but she sure doesn't score in my house. Telling myself the book took place in the early Eighties didn't help. I remember the Eighties quite well, thank you very much. But that hardly made me warm to a main character whose chief fun in life consists of taking drugs, trying to force them on her relatives and making passes at every male in reach who isn't her husband. I kept thinking about how much I liked Marti's husband, a very nice man who spends most of the book staying home with the couple's very cute dog.  

For those of who still might want to give the third Marti Hirsch mystery a chance, the book opens with Marti's writing career in tatters. Reduced to working for her best friend, world famous artist Jana Crowley, the toked-up Marti doesn't want to admit to Jana's nasty Brit husband that his wife is tippling scotch in the laundry room.  

Unfortunately, someone strangles Jana in the laundry, and the investigating cop, who holds a grudge from one of Marti's earlier capers, sets Ms. Hirsch up as the prime murder suspect. Since the police refuse to look for the real killer, much less help Marti clear her name, Marti opens her own investigation into the lowlife of New York and its environs. 

My nausea level hit critical when Marti boffs her dead boss's lover in New Jersey. According to Marti it doesn't break the marriage vows if you screw around in another state. Marti's New Jersey conquest takes her home, saves her life and winds up getting pushed through a plate glass window for his trouble. Meanwhile, our not-so-heroic heroine slinks off to the subway rather than risk being caught in the victim's vicinity. By the way, that happens on page 139, which is when I quit reading the book.  

Did I find any redeeming features in I Will Survive? Well, Moore's description of the beautiful people inhabiting NYC and the disco scene sounds wickedly apt. And I did like the dog, but that's not enough to recommend a book for reading, much less buying. 

Suzanne Frisbee

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