It's Labor Day weekend, and Skylar's just arrived at his rich relations' in Yankeeland. Very upper-crusty, Hahvahd types all around, and proper proper proper. There's all this land but no animals, all these trappings but not a lot of heart. One thing's no different, though - crime, which social class isn't above. Only problem is, when some very valuable jewels disappear, folks start pointing the finger at Skylar. He tries to shake these accusations off, but when a thirteen-year-old rich girl turns up murdered, Skylar's got no choice but to get down and find some real answers fast. From the fellow who tickled our funnybones with the "Fletch" series comes this follow-up to Skylar (Morrow, 1995), in which a comely Southern hunk uses his wits and good looks to solve crimes. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Skylar Whitfield is a 20-year-old musical prodigy from backwoods Tennessee. After he accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Knightsbridge Music Academy, he moves to Boston and settles in at the home of his uncle Wayne, who has parlayed a successful business career into a ticket to Boston Brahmin society. Skylar's snooty Boston cousins aren't thrilled to have a Gomer Pyle^-soundalike in their midst, and it seems their suspicions are confirmed when some of the family jewels are missing. Then a young girl is brutally murdered, and all eyes turn toward the outsider. A cornpone hero seems an ironic twist for the creator of the ultracool and sophisticated Fletch, but our apparently guileless protagonist is much sharper than he at first seems and is more than capable of solving a robbery, nabbing a murderer, and--even more impressive--charming the pants off Boston's snootiest. Funny, sexy, and charming, Skylar is a winner and hopefully embarking on a long and successful career as an amateur sleuth. Wes Lukowsky Even apart from their dinner for an unnamed foreign ambassador, it's been quite a Labor Day weekend for redneck sexpot Skylar Whitfield's northern cousins. First, there's the advent of Skylar, come to Boston on a music scholarship. Then Aunt Lacey's jewels go missing from Uncle Wayne's safe. Cousin Jonathan's fiance Joan (``Jonesy'') Appleyard accuses Skylar of raping her; Skylar rescues Jonathan's sister Calder and her boyfriend Tom Palmer from a near-fatal car accident; and Lacey's playboy brother Calder confides to her that the family firm is bankrupt. It's almost an anticlimax when neighboring teen Louise Oglethorp is shot to death and Ginny Whitfield, the best friend last seen clutching the murder weapon, skips out. Through all the misadventures of his proper, moneyed cousins, Skylar, though out of his element in Tennessee (Skylar, 1995), has time for some sweet sex, some sweet trumpet music, and an arrest that snatches him out from under a little dispute with the Knightsbridge School of Music about his eligibility for that scholarship before the wheels of justice begin to grind. Perhaps the liveliest of Mcdonald's recent books, though the multiple domestic crises never do grow together--you can just see Mcdonald ticking them off as he wraps each one up and soldiers on to the next. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. In Fletch , Gregory Mcdonald created a signature character whose roguish charm and renegade sleuthing delighted a generation of readers. Over the past twenty years the Fletch books earned Mcdonald two Edgar Awards, spawned the popular motion pictures Fletch and Fletch Lives starring Chevy Chase, and established Mcdonald as a writer of humorous suspense. For the nineties, Gregory Mcdonald produced a welcome successor to Fletch in charismatic young Skylar Whitfield, first introduced in Skylar . Now, with Skylar in Yankeeland , Mcdonald continues the exploits of the dashing charmer Publishers Weekly has called "a country-boy folk hero who mixes Robin Hood's populism with randy sexuality and backwoods smarts." This time, twenty-year-old Southern hunk Skylar Whitfield leaves his beloved Tennessee home to study the trumpet in Boston. His blue-blooded Yankee relatives give him a very cold shoulder, dismissing him as a naive rube and turning up their patrician noses at his fun-loving antics. That is, until precious gems disappear and Skylar captures their undivided attention -- as the prime suspect in the heist. A smart and sawy thriller, Skylar in Yankeeland will satisfy stalwart Fletch fans while also luring a young new audience. From Chapter 1: Wayne asked his three children, "When is Skylar due to arrive?" He knew the answer. "Tomorrow at four," Jon answered. "I'm picking him up at the bus station." " 'Bus station,' " Calder scoffed. "You had to remind me. Another Dufus. Another flea-scratching, popeyed, twang- talking, Southern farm boy. Racist, I'm sure. 'Ha, y'all!' " Calder grinned like a fool and gestured widely with her arm. Her bracelet jangled. "'How're y'all doin' this fine day? Me? Why, ah feel just like a mule ki