Sex and the single sleuth

Ever since bounty-hunting heroine Stephanie Plum burst onto the mystery scene in 1994 -- sporting spandex, big hair and a New Jersey background rich in blue-collar humor -- there has been a slew of authors and publishers seeking to tap the vein that Plum’s creator, Janet Evanovich, has so expertly mined. And though there are writers who have created memorable “chick lit” sleuths (Sarah Strohmeyer’s beautician-reporter Bubbles Yablonsky and Los Angeles newcomer Patricia Smiley’s consultant Tucker Sinclair spring to mind), no one has come close to unseating Evanovich as Queen of the Quirky Mystery.

Another challenger to the throne is Harley Jane Kozak, whose first novel was last year’s well-received “Dating Dead Men.” The former actress has had some macabre work experiences that might give her an edge in the offbeat-mystery-writing sweepstakes. Her character in a long-running soap opera was killed off, for example, when a neon letter fell from a hotel marquee and crushed her to death, and she had a leading role in the 1990 horror comedy “Arachnophobia.” But is a colorful Hollywood resume sufficient to conquer a subgenre in which the writer must balance the traditional elements of mystery, romance and suspense with improbably named heroines working in nontraditional careers, hip girlfriends (one of whom is invariably black), inscrutably handsome men and a ditzy yet loving family?

Kozak’s second novel, “Dating Is Murder,” finds series heroine and greeting card designer Wollstonecraft “Wollie” Shelley grieving over the departure of her fiance, Doc, who has broken up with her and traveled to Taiwan to be near his young daughter. At the insistence of girlfriends Joey and Fredreeq (who, true to the subgenre’s conventions, is black), Wollie is trying to forget her troubles, pick up a little extra cash and get back into the dating game by appearing as a paid contestant on “Biological Clock.” The third-rate reality TV show’s three female contestants are filmed on prearranged dates with a rotating stable of three men, and the top female vote-getter’s prize is six months of free fertility services with her male counterpart or a sperm donor of her choice. But Wollie’s plan to report to a local restaurant for a taping is disrupted by a phone call from the mother of Annika Gluck, an au pair who is Wollie’s math tutor and moonlights on “Biological Clock” as a production assistant. Mrs. Gluck fears her daughter is in trouble because Annika did not place her weekly call home to Germany. Wollie agrees to take on the task of finding the young woman, in part to ease her conscience for not noticing Annika’s absence from the set and for not knowing that she was so desperate that she had asked a crew member where to get a gun.

Wollie, who is juggling the show, college math proficiency tests and a part-time job painting a frog mural on a friend’s kitchen wall (don’t ask), pulls out her trusty Thomas Guide, “a book of maps as common to Southern California cars as Gideon Bibles are to hotel-room drawers,” and heads for the wilds of Encino, where she is accosted by a goose (“I’ve been in some undignified situations in my life, but hiding from poultry was a low watermark”) at the home of Annika’s sponsors and employers. She meets Annika’s young charge, Emma Quinn, and Emma’s mother, Maizie, a Martha Stewart wannabe. Maizie can’t account for the missing girl’s absence, although what appears to be a designer drug found in Annika’s room gives the search an ominous twist. Was Annika a drug user, or worse? What role did her boyfriend, Rico Rodriguez, handsome college student and son of a congressman, play in her disappearance? Are the people who are stalking Wollie all over Los Angeles related to Annika or Savannah Brook, a contestant on “Biological Clock” who wants to win at all costs? And why does Wollie keep coming back to a Chaco horned frog, Ceratophrys cranwelli, in that mural she’s painting?

A search for answers to these and a hundred other questions sends Wollie from Encino to San Pedro and points in between, as she contends with hilarious impromptu shopping excursions with Joey and Fredreeq, interminable “dates” with a motley crew of contestants from the show, a mysterious blue-eyed stranger who appears to be stalking her and a recurrent fear that someone has hit the snooze button on her biological clock: “What was the statute of limitations on true love?” she worries. “Longer than the working life of my ovaries?”

Though “Dating Is Murder” has flaws -- including inexplicable lapses in judgment on Wollie’s part that seem more related to the author’s need to manipulate the plotting and plump up the story than to her heroine’s naivete or any dumb-blond stereotypes -- Kozak balances the needs of the mystery with the wackier elements of her story. But it is the voice of Wollie, who is fast approaching 40, that is spot-on perfect, humorous and poignant enough by turns to win the series new fans and make Kozak a contender in the never-ending quest for the perfect quirky mystery. *