The Last Best Hope (Matthew Hope Mysteries

Warner Books, 1999. Good. McBain, an MWA Grandmaster, seamlessly combines the casts and locales of hi s Matthew Hope and 87th Precinct series into a coherent and entertaining wh ole. It begins when Jill Lawton approaches Hope, an attorney in Calusa, Fla ., for help in finding her missing husband, Jack, whom she intends to divor ce. That night, a body carrying Jack's identification turns up shot in the face and dead. It's not Jack Lawton's body, however, but that of Ernest Cor rington, a burglar and would-be actor who was the third corner in a love tr iangle with Jack and a woman who goes by two names, Melanie and Holly. Jack and she have also comprised an erotic triangle with Jill. What binds these people together (besides the sexual geometry) is a plan to steal the Hemlo ck Cup from a local museum. The cup, the stuff of legends, is reputedly the very cup from which Socrates drank his poison. Jack, Jill, Holly/Melanie a nd Corrington hatch intricate plots to steal the cup?and to eliminate each other from collecting any part of the payment being offered by a Greek coll ector. Trying to trace Jack, Hope gets in touch with Detective Steve Carell a of the 87th Precinct "up north." Their collaboration is complicated by de ad bodies and yet another boyfriend of Holly/Melanie's. Sound tangled? It i s, but with McBain's skilled handling, it's crystal clear and an absolute d elight.