Cold Day In July
Popular romantic suspense writer Cameron (Glass Houses, etc.)  concocts a gummy Cajun stew of a novel, cramming a cast of bayou  denizens into this oddly off-balance offering. When Bonnie Blue,  an enigmatic singer passing through Toussaint, La., is strangled  at the local church, town residents assume her death has nothing  to do with two other recent murders. Redhead Reb O'Brien, the  local doctor, isn't so sure, and when Marc Girard, town prodigal  son and Reb's high school crush, comes back to investigate the  crime, matters become even more complicated. Marc believes Blue  was his estranged older sister Amy; Reb is ready to believe him,  but finds she must concentrate on her own safety when she and  her poodle, Gaston, are attacked. Local priest Cyrus and his  assistant Madge are also distraught, as they had been trying to  help Bonnie Blue before she was killed. Cyrus's eccentric  housekeeper, Oribel, and her beautiful, sly daughter, Precious,  have their own ideas about what is going on, and Precious is  involved in more than just plotting to keep her errant husband,  Chauncey Depew, in line. Meanwhile, Marc finds himself still  inexorably drawn to Reb, and she to him, just as when they were  in school. Strangely for so ordinarily adept a writer, Cameron  fumbles her plot and badly misjudges the novel's pacing. The  dialogue is choppy and the ending is jarringly abrupt, as if  missing a large piece of the action. (Sept.)   Forecast: Cameron has a proven track record, but even fans may  be baffled by this latest.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.