Mix a splash of Carrie Bradshaw, a dash of Stephanie Plum and a wee bit of Kinsey Millhone and you have Molly Forrester, advice columnist ("You Can Tell Me") for Zeitgeist
magazine by day and amateur sleuth by night. At the start of Anderson's debut comic crime novel, Forrester literally steps in it—gooey blood, that is—when she returns to the office late one night and stumbles over a dead coworker. Molly's spanking new Jimmy Choos are covered in blood and she's soon knee-deep in sex, lies and crime-scene tape. Thrown into the fray are a hottie cop named Kyle Edwards; Molly's two gal pals, lawyer Cassady Lynch and event planner Tricia Vincent; and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Peter Mulcahey, who happens to be a reporter for a rival magazine. Can Molly solve the murder and segue into a serious writing career? Or is using the death of a coworker as a major career move utterly uncouth? ("I always knew I'd make my mark on the world. I just didn't expect it to be one of those chalk outlines they draw around dead bodies.") While Molly explores her options, there's a second murder, and financial irregularities pop up in Zeitgeist
's accounting department. Ample laughs help propel a well-crafted plot. Agent, Andrew Zack. (May 12)
FYI:
A television writer, Anderson credits her husband, Mark Parrott, as the novel's coauthor in her acknowledgments.
