The third novel to feature television producer and accidental sleuth Sonya Iverson (who appeared last in 2006's Shooting Script
) promises A-list celebrity scandal and style, but delivers only graying socialites and secondhand couture. Sonya is assigned to cover the 40th anniversary of Woody's, a high-end thrift store, for The Donna Fuller Show
. Opened in the 1950s by Anthea Woodruff, wife of New York publishing magnate James Woodruff, the store is now run by her three daughters Hilda, Julia and Ellin, and doting confidante Gussie Ford. The fluff piece unfolds into a hard news lead when Gussie turns up murdered in the shop days before the anniversary gala. Sonya probes into the dirty little secrets of the Woodruff family while arrogance, addiction and treachery come into full view. Klensch's prose lacks the brio to invigorate the trite controversy at the heart of the novel. Her celebrity characters are too thinly drawn, their motives too obviously vapid, and so the novel leaves unanswered that first question of every good news story: why do we care? (Nov.)
