Mask for a Diva

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In Michaels's fourth starring vehicle for Boston hairdresser and sometime sleuth Stan Kraychik (last seen in Dead on Your Feet), the gay redhead forsakes his tony Back Bay salon for an opera festival at a Massachusetts resort. There Stan is to help dress wigs, while Marcella Ostinata, ``an aging dramatic soprano whose past glories were dubious,'' will take center stage in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. The diva's high notes are silenced for good, however, as a murderous phantom of the opera stalks the Sidney Blaustein Center for the Performing Arts. Enter Boston cop, Lt. Vito Branco, a supposedly hetero hunk whom Stan has assisted (and drooled over) in earlier crime-busting adventures. Part Agatha Christie melodrama, part Murder, She Wrote episode, this campy caper proceeds with an endearing predictability: readers may know what's coming next, but that's part of the fun. Michaels includes just enough opera tidbits (including qualche Italian phrases) to entertain but not overwhelm, and Stan's wisecracks continue to tickle fey funnybones. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Gay hairdresser and flighty amateur sleuth Stanley Kraychik (Love You to Death, LJ 3/1/92) takes a temporary job as wig assistant at a new opera facility near Boston. An aging, viciously rude soprano of dubious talent heads the cast, so no one expresses remorse-or surprise-at her murder. Deputized by his favorite straight Boston policeman, Kraychik manages to question and alienate most of an artistically and sexually diverse cast. Michaels beats some of his clues to death with conjecture and repetition, but the strange characterizations may keep the pages turning for some.