Latest Elinor Lipman comic novel is here to brighten your mood

REVIEW

By CHRIS HEWITT

The Minnesota Star Tribune (TNS) E linor Lipman is as reliable as Chex Mix or your favorite afghan.

Her comic novels, often noted as the contemporary equivalent of Jane Austen classics, always hit the spot with warm characters, sharp dialogue, amusing situations and endings where everything works out for the people you hope it will work out for. The latest, “Every Tom, Dick and Harry,” is no different.

It’s about clever Emma, who hasn’t gured out how best to use her talents. When her father and stepmother retire and move, she drifts into their lives as if they’re hand-me-down slippers, moving into their home (with a friend of her father’s as a tenant) and taking over their business. She’s been helping with the estate sale rm since she was a kid, so it’s a comfortable t but it’s not her passion and she’s not sure what is. Possibly Luke, the new police chief of her small New England town, who is handsome, an old acquaintance and maybe/maybe-not single?

All ve characters mentioned in that last paragraph are funny and distinctive, and Lipman has concocted a situation that offers plenty of comic possibilities: Emma’s latest project is a former B& B, except at least one of those B’s is “bordello.” What appears to be an average suburban home turns out to be a bawdy house inside, complete with a special staircase that leads to an area where the most intimate encounters occurred. The place has some decent silver and artwork but also a bunch of stuff Emma has never had to sell and an owner who’s not easy to deal with.

There’s nothing unexpected in “Every Tom, Dick and Harry,” like your afghan or Chex Mix (unless someone puts goldsh crackers in it, in which case: How dare you?).

It’s as cozy and genial as a book with a madam and a fair number of freelance prostitutes could possibly be. There are more than the usual number of complications (everyone in town is scheming for Emma and Luke to hook up without knowing they already have, plus Emma’s boarder is romancing Luke’s mom). But the writer of “The Inn at Lake Devine” and “Ms. Demeanor” knows exactly how to shuf_e things so all the good people nd love and all the bad people go to jail or at least have to move to Florida.

If you’re a fan of Lipman, you’re going to love it. And, if you’re new to her, you’re in luck: Her 14 other comic novels are all terric.

‘Every Tom, Dick and Harry’

By Elinor Lipman Publisher: Harper, 320 pages, $27.99.

Harper via TNS