Maguire, Elizabeth

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Maguire, Elizabeth

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Office—Basic Books, 387 Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10016.

CAREER: Basic Books, New York, NY, vice president and publisher.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Deirdre Kennedy) Irish Family Law Handbook (nonfiction), Butterworths (Dublin, Ireland), 1999.

Thinner, Blonder, Whiter (mystery novel), Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth Maguire's first novel, Thinner, Blonder, Whiter, takes place in the world of publishing. As a publisher at Basic Books herself, Maguire knows the setting well. The protagonist of Thinner, Blonder, Whiter is Julia, an editor at a company that publishes many works of African-American scholarship. Julia, who is white, has an intermittent affair with one of her authors, a married man who is a dynamic public speaker as well as a writer. Julia's world is shaken when Fitz, a gentle, unassuming man who was her brother's best friend, is brutally murdered. The motive is mysterious, but Fitz's corpse is disposed of by the killers in a way that suggests his death was meant to send a message to someone. Another complication comes when one of the most important authors on Julia's roster disappears during a fundraising dinner honoring African-American achievement. Julia soon becomes friendly with Thomas Lynch, the detective who is investigating both the murder and the missing person. A Kirkus Reviews writer had reservations about the "slapdash plotting" in Thinner, Blonder, Whiter, but a Publishers Weekly reviewer praised the sharp characterizations and dialog of Julia's "smart-aleck publishing pals," and credited the author with creating "a provocative denouement."