Anthony Award winner Roberts offers another charming and amusing cozy, the 11th to feature Philadelphia high school teacher and part-time sleuth Amanda Pepper (after 2000's Helen Hath No Fury). Amanda and her ex-cop lover, C.K. Mackenzie, who's supplementing their meager income by working as a PI while he completes a Ph.D. in criminology, are finally engaged. C.K. asks Amanda to interview a new client, Claire Fairchild, who wants her prospective daughter-in-law, Emmie Cade, investigated because "I don't know who she is." Amanda agrees to take the assignment with some misgivings, since she herself is about to meet C.K.'s mother for the first time and sympathizes with Emmie. C.K., however, unearths a wealth of disconcerting information about Ms. Cade, whose friends and lovers have been felled by accidents, suicides and even murders. She's a dangerous woman—or is she? Then Mrs. Fairchild dies, officially of natural causes, and Emmie implores Amanda to discover why her life is such a wreck. There's a delightfully worked out parallel between a troubled student in Amanda's class and the even more troubled Emmie. Subplots proliferate. By the time you've learned the solution, so much has occurred that you've lost sight of the problem and are left waiting for the next installment. They will
wed, won't they? C.K. and Amanda could be the new Nick and Nora. Agent, Jean Naggar. (June 3)
