Minichino returns with her sixth mystery featuring retired physicist Gloria Lamerino. If it's number 6, it must be carbon, and sure enough, the latest in these periodic table-named novels centers on a young woman named MC, who happens to have been working for a carbon-research center in Houston. Now MC, the daughter of Gloria's best friend, Rose, is back in the Boston suburb where Gloria and Rose live, trying to fend off an abusive ex-boyfriend turned stalker. When the murdered body of a young woman MC knew in Houston is found nearby, Gloria and her boyfriend, Detective Matt Gennaro, are suspicious. Was something amiss back in Houston, and are the carbon researchers out to clean up loose ends? Hindering Gloria's attempts to protect MC and solve this mystery is her struggle to help Matt, who has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Artfully mixing science and suspense, Minichino continues to make the most of her winning formula as she works her way through the elements. --Jenny McLarin Copyright 2004 Booklist

Nanotechnology simplified for the horsy set. When MC, a chemical engineer recently resettled from Houston to Revere, Massachusetts, confides in her godmother, retired physicist and compulsive snoop Gloria Lamerino, that she thinks her old beau Jake is stalking her, Gloria (The Boric Acid Murder, 2002, etc.) is in a quandary. How can she help MC and still be at the side of her cancer-stricken live-in lover Matt Gennaro, a short but feisty cop? Since Matt is frequently passing out from medical mishaps and mostly immobilized in a drafty hospital gown, Gloria gets to pry into things with his partner and, alas, on her own. She tails transplanted Texans, ponders why veterinarians' names appear on grants for highly technical human-oriented drug research, and stands helplessly by when bodies start dropping. But she does find time to swill a decent cup of coffee, diagram carbon molecules, expound on Buckminster Fuller's influence on modern nanotechnology ("Bucky balls"), and figure out the connections between dead horses, dead people, and scientific fraud. Okay, so Gloria's a bit on the pedantic side, and Minichino's idea of plotting is to toss in red herrings, then kill them off. But who could argue with such a deft handling of radiation therapy, contrary in-laws, and middle-age spread? Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In Camille Minichino's sixth Periodic Table mystery, The Carbon Murder, retired Revere, Mass., physicist Gloria Lamerino and her homicide cop boyfriend, Matt Genaro, fear for the life of Gloria's godchild, Mary "MC" Catherine Galigani, who's returned home after doing carbon-based research for a tech firm in Houston, Tex. The murder in a Revere park of a young woman MC knew in Houston raises the ante. Agent, Elaine Koster. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved