Picture Perfect Corpse

Slan’s entertaining sixth scrap-n-craft mystery (after 2012’s Ready, Scrap, Shoot) opens with a bang: St. Louis, Mo., scrapbooker Kiki Lowenstein has just fatally shot Bill Ballard, who masterminded her husband’s murder, to save the life of her mother-in-law, Sheila Lowenstein. Meanwhile, pregnant Kiki’s ecstatic boyfriend, Det. Chad Detweiler, has just learned that he’s going to be a father. Unfortunately, the shooting incident, which involved Chad’s estranged wife, Brenda, has repercussions. When Brenda is murdered in Illinois, the evidence leads the police straight to Chad, but his fellow St. Louis officers can’t cross jurisdictional lines to help. And as she recovers from injuries she suffered in the shooting, Kiki looks into the truth about the death of her boss’s son years earlier. Also, something serious is bothering her daughter, Anya. Multiple plotlines keep the story moving briskly. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Folio Literary Management. (May)