Skeleton Key

Jane Haddam does her usual brilliant job weaving the personal story of Bennis and Gregor (amazingly, finally together), crime and puzzle, with her real life sharply observant eye on human acts, human motives. Like a Japanese brush painter, she captures an essence in a few strokes. Litchfield county debs and country club denizens and old money and old money wannabe's and a Litchfield county women who doesn't have any money to be sick. Murders happen that couldn't and in the midst of it, Bennis gets sick.... Read it.

I have been a fan of Gregor Demarkian since I first picked up one of Jane Haddam's books, and this is my all time, absolute favorite ~ number 15 in a series of delightful, classic mysteries that include the Armenian-American neighbors in Philadelphia.I have come to know and love all of Gregor's neighbors, ache for him in his relationship with Bennis, laugh at his confusion, and delight their discovery of each other, although I think Bennis WAS the one in charge here. Perhaps no more.I can also delight in being totally wrong about "who-done-it", because I never get it right, and Ms. Haddam's solutions are always better! Most of the series actually takes place away from Cavanaugh Street, and this trip is out into the wilds of Litchfield County, Connecticut. Roads with no names to frustrate poor Gregor. A killer on the loose. And with all the clues in front of me, I was STILL wrong again.I devoured this book, having waited so long for it, and now that I've finished it once, I'm going to sit down with it again - it's too good NOT to read twice!

This is one of the best! It seems appropriate for the year 2000 that most of the characters are reviewing their lives. And Bennis will have a very big decision to make! Dear Jane, Keep those books coming!

In the wealthiest section of affluent Litchfield County, Connecticut lives Kayla Anson, a debutante now worth billions with the recent death of her father. Visiting the posh Anson estate is Bennis Hannaford, who plans to stay only one night. When Bennis goes outside to smoke a cigarette, she notices the BMW in the garage seems to contain a person. Reluctantly, she looks inside only to find the dead body of Kayla.Bennis asks her lover Gregor Demarkian to come up from Philadelphia to help the local police with the investigation. Already having trouble sleeping without his beloved Bennis near him, the former head of the FBI's Behavioral Science unit quickly heads to Connecticut. Two more deaths occur, including that of Kayla's arrogant, blue-blooded mother. Meanwhile, Gregor conducts his own investigation in an effort to determine the clues that belong to case, and those that the culprit has added to fool the police, before someone else dies.Though SKELETON KEY starts a bit slow, once Gregor reaches the estates of the self-professed elite of Connecticut, the novel moves rapidly forward. The story line is an entertaining cozy highlighted by delightful characters. In his fifteenth appearance, Demarkian remarkably retains a vigor that allows Jane Haddam to even preach against the hazards of tobacco without slowing down a plot that will please her readers.Harriet Klausner