When the Fax Lady Sings: A Molly Masters Mystery

At Carlton Central School parents like Molly Masters participate in a fund-raiser. Molly and six other people are going to dress as clowns, disrupting a beautiful woman singing a torch song as one of the festivities to raise money. At the dress rehearsal, the clowns wait in the wings for a magician to finish his act when one of them shoots and kills Corrine, a high schoolteacher. Molly, an eyewitness to the event, is the only clown not under suspicion because someone can state where she was during the shooting. Molly learns that several of the suspects have motives to want the teacher dead including a former lover and the mother of the student she was having an affair with despite the rules. Having solved homicides in the past, Molly decides to do her own brand of investigating that places her in jeopardy from an individual who wants the killer's identity to remain anonymously hidden behind greasepaint. In Leslie O'Kane's fictionalized school, the parents and the administration seem more dangerous than the students are as violence permeates the system. While not realistic, it allows for escapism from the real world. WHEN THE FAX LADY SINGS is an intriguing novel that is characterized by Ms. O'Kane's distinct style of humor.Harriet Klausner