A lush Hawaiian setting, murder, hints at kinky sex and insider TV knowledge don't quite add up to a winning mystery in the second novel starring TV producer Sonya Iverson
(Live at 10:00, Dead at 10:15
) by Klensch, a CNN host and style journalist. Errol Swanson, a cartoonishly nasty spa owner, is put out of his misery at the end of chapter one ("His head had rolled toward the door, and Sonya could see the bullet hole in the center of his forehead"), but readers still get to hear all about him, as the next 21 chapters are backstory. Cliché-rich portraits—of Swanson's current wife, ex-wife, ex-lover, spurned gay son, supposedly dead other son and fired employee, each of whom had good reason to pull the trigger—pile up. Sonya, in town to document the opening of Errol's new spa, now has a bigger story. "Could the disturbed woman have pulled the trigger and killed her father? Could her voices have told her to do it? Surely not." Sonya does solve the mystery, but in the course of her sleuthing she helps provoke the suicide of the disturbed—and, yes, innocent—woman, Errol's daughter, Christy. The author's bio notes that she's made the Best-Dressed List, but the bestseller list looks less likely. Agent, Kay McCauley
. (Oct.)
