Death and Faxes

This witty, sometimes cynical, debut introduces Molly Masters, a greeting card designer who returns to her hometown in upstate New York while her engineer husband is sent on a job in the Philippines. With their two young children in tow, Molly starts up a faxable-greeting service and reunites with her lifelong friend, Lauren. She receives a note from a high-school teacher whom she had satirized in a poem in the school newspaper years before, but before Molly responds, the woman dies. Molly gets a series of faxes implying that she is responsible for the teacher's death and threatening her and her children. Nearly everywhere she turns, Molly encounters members of her graduating class who remember the nasty poem: Tommy Newton, a nerd who is now the investigating police officer; ""Miss Popularity,"" Stephanie Saunders, the current PTA president; football hero Jack Vance, who has become the elementary school principal. When a classmate's husband is murdered, Molly's suspicions focus on all the nearby alums. Peppered by Molly's greeting card brainstorms, O'Kane's engaging mystery takes a slanted, entertaining glance at high-school figures we all loved to hate. (Feb.)