residing in the north Boston suburb of 

 Revere. This time around, she's in New 

 York City, doing Christmas shopping, 

 enjoying the cuisine ofLittle Italy, and, 

 incidentally, trying to find the killer 

 of a cinematographer found suffo- 

 cated in the midtown apartment of 

 her husband's niece. The niece, it 

 turns out, is making a documen- 

 tary about ozone (O,) pollution 

 in the workplace, and it could be that 

 one of the business establishments she 

 was spotlighting took drastic measures 

 to conceal their violations of environ- 

 mental law Then again, it could have 

 been one of the people her cinematog- 

 rapher was blackmailing. 



At first read, Lamerino seems more 

 like an Italian grandmother than a hard- 

 nosed detective. She's a reluctant inves- 

 tigator, driven mostly by curiosity and 

 the need to do something with her brain 

 now that she's no longer in the lab. Afraid 

 of guns, she even worries herself into a 



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tizzy when 

 she pilfers an 

 incriminating 

 document from 

 a suspects filing 

 cabinet. But give 

 er a PowerPoint 

 presentation or a 

 chalkboard, and she 

 hits her stride. Two- 

 or three-page science 

 lectures immediately 

 come forth, such as 

 how CFCs harm the ozone layers, that 

 read as if they were lifted from a text- 

 book. And, pushed into action, she's 

 sharp-eyed and resourceful, and she al- 

 ways seems to come through her in- 

 evitable encounters with perps suffering 

 only minor injuries. 



That's fortunate, because Lamerino 

 has a remarkable proclivity for encoun- 

 tering crimes. She's solved seven "ele- 

 ment" murders before this one, starting 

 from the top of the periodic table: hy- 

 drogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, 

 boron (well, actually, boric acid), car- 

 bon, and nitrogen. 



The pattern was no doubt inspired by 

 Sue Grafton, whose "Alphabet" series, 

 featuring detective Kinsey Millhone, is 

 up to "S" (Sis for Silence). But if Camille 

 Minichino's pattern continues, she'll be 

 writing a lot longer than Grafton will, 

 since the number of naturally occurring 

 chemical elements (ninety-two) is a 

 good deal greater than the number of 

 letters in the alphabet. If Minichino, like 

 Gloria Lamerino, is looking forward to 

 an easy and crime-free retirement, she's 

 out of luck — which is very good news 

 for summer readers. 



Also Worthy of Mention: 

 Intuition by Allegra Goodman (The Dial 

 Press; $25.00) 



Like Goodman's earlier books, Intu- 

 ition is a literate and perceptive explo- 

 ration of human relations, not a pure 

 entertainment. It's set in a lab in Cam- 

 bridge, Massachusetts, where a young 

 postdoc is embroiled in a controversy 

 over falsifying data. There's mystery and 

 conflict, along with a sharply drawn 

 cast of characters, just as in the genre 



mysteries. But this is a lovely book that 

 readers wiD find not a guilty pleasure, 

 but a pure delight. 



Quarry by Susan Cummins Miller (Texas 

 Tech University Press; $24. 95) 



The geologist heroine is just about 

 to defend her thesis, when one of her 

 doctoral examiners is murdered. And 

 that's just the start of this fast-moving 

 and authentic thriller that effectively 

 conveys the feel of geological field- 

 work along with its high-adrenaline 

 plot line. Geologist MacFarlane is 

 making her third outing here, and she 

 clearly ranks among the upper strata of 

 scientifically trained detectives. 



Laurence A. Marschall, author of The 

 Supernova Story, is W.K. T. Sahm Professor 

 of Physics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylva- 

 nia, and director of Project CLEA, which pro- 

 duces widely used simulation software for edu- 

 cation in astronomy. 



LETTE RS 



(Continued from page 10) 

 the atmosphere, as much as all the cars 

 and light trucks in the United States." 



The Centralia, Pennsylvania, mine 

 fires have been burning since 1962. 

 The Jaharia mine fires in India have 

 been burning since 1916. The con- 

 tribution of those fires to global emis- 

 sions of carbon dioxide should be a 

 part of any thoughtful discussion on 

 climate change. 

 David Hutchins 

 Ocean Ridge, Florida 



I applaud your printing of Jeff Good- 

 ell's "Commentary" and especially 

 your giving it the cover priority it de- 

 serves. In the many years I have read 

 your publication, Natural History has 

 displayed consistently first-class jour- 

 nalism. With this article, however, you 

 are taking a bold step and a desperate- 

 ly needed stand on the major issue of 

 this century: climate change and oth- 

 er environmental disasters. I say this 

 sadly, because those of us involved in 

 these issues know how radically the 

 (Continued on page 52) 



50 



NATURAL HISTORY July/August 2006 



