"Slugfest" by Rosemary Harris: Book Review

"Slugfest" by Rosemary Harris
Minotaur, 275 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

You can take the girl out of the city, butcha can't take the city out of the girl.

Expatriate (from Brooklyn to the Connecticut burbs, that is) professional gardener Paula Holliday returns to NYC (where she used to work in video production) in order to push a Connecticut-burb neighbor's outdoor sculptures at the Big Apple Flower Show, in this fourth "Dirty Business" mystery by Rosemary Harris.

The timing couldn't be better for Paula, as her BBC (Best Bud in the City), Lucy Cavanaugh, is spa-ing things up SOB (South of the Border) in hopes of shedding seven pesky pounds, so Paula can encamp in Lucy's walk-up studio apartment.

In addition to manning (womaning?) the sculpture booth along with dozens of other exhibitors at the show, Paula aspires to a pleasant interlude in the city-- a little shopping at the Korean grocer's here, a slice of pizza at the around-the-corner Italian place there, plus coffee and cream pie at the neighborhood Greek diner.

Lucy's apartment still sports a bashed-in wall as reminder of her failed relationship with her last contractor, but her made-to-be-raided closet more than makes up for the lack of general ambience, and dearth of sustenance in the fridge.

So, Paula has high hopes of unloading all the sculptures (so she won't have to shlep 'em back) and earning some plenty of commissions in the process.

Suddenly, however, she's cavorting with teenage runaways, having drinks with a touchy-feely faux-stone manufacturer and his lollapaboobza of a wife, then also having drinks with a female security guard from The Hood, and eating baked ziti with an iron-bar-wielding neighbor downstairs from Lucy's apartment.

Those gardeners-- they're a wild-and-crazy bunch.

At least Paula gets to wear one of Lucy's stunning red gowns, as well as a Balenciaga jacket slathered with brass buttons.

Harris's delightfully comic novel blooms with, well, well-sculpted characters and one amusing escapade after another. Paula's wit and charm fill out the overall bouquet of the proceedings.

Indeed, Paula seems so much more at home on her old stomping grounds, interacting with these characters (particularly the iron-bar-wielding, ziti-baking neighbor and the security guard), that the reader begins to wish that Puala was pulling up her Connecticut roots and re-potting herself back in The City.

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