Easeful Death

From Publishers Weekly A bizarre identity switch kicks off this intriguing psychological drama by the author of the Father Dowling mystery series. Raunchy, alcoholic "retired" poet Howard Webster is holed up in his Wisconsin farmhouse re-wooing his muse when a vagrant hangs himself in the barn. By burning the body on a bonfire and writing a suicide poem, Webster convinces everyone that he has died and spends the next two years anonymously in Sardinia. His larcenous daughter Felicia establishes the Webster Foundation, which accrues unexpected (but inaccessible) wealth when the curator "discovers" a Webster manuscript that becomes a huge posthumous success. Felicia's husband seeks a way out of vast debts incurred with pie-in-the-sky business schemes, while Webster's third (divorced) wife is persuaded to abet a plot to "discover" still more manuscripts. Truth-seekers among the shady types are private investigator Philip Knight and his enormously fat brother Roger, computer genius and ardent admirer of Webster's poetry. After two more deaths, numerous thefts and a kind of reverse counterfeiting, a deus ex machina wraps things up satisfactorily. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal How does one react to the news that one has become famous in absentia? Howard Webster, an aging poet, faces that quandary after staging his own death on his isolated Wisconsin farm. Webster had become convinced that his life was in vain. When presented with an opportunity to escape his humdrum existence, he seizes the moment and expatriates to Sardinia to live out his days in anonymity. Alas! While living abroad he picks up a magazine that places him "among the two or three genuine poetic talents of the past half century in America." Webster returns to the United States undercover and travels to his farm, which his estranged daughter has turned into the Webster Foundation. He discovers that his sudden fame stems primarily from a novella published posthumously, and authored by the foundation's curator. Although subterfuge and intrigue abound, the novel finally disappoints the reader awaiting some revelation.