In Carrington's entertaining fourth Sofie Metropolis novel (after 2007's Foul Play
), the Queens Greek-American PI is on the hunt for an all-dressed-up-and-ready-to-be-viewed corpse that's been snatched from her aunt's funeral home. Sofie is also trying to prove the innocence of Johnny Laughton, a young man from the projects about to go on trial for the murder of his socially upscale girlfriend a year earlier, though her body was never found. Despite a heartbroken secretary, a meddling mother, and vampires and necrophiliacs for neighbors, Sofie pursues both cases with aplomb. Meanwhile, still recovering from the left-at-the-altar fiasco detailed in Sofie Metropolis
(2005), she consoles herself in a no-strings fling with Dino Antonopoulos, a pastry shop owner, until Jake Porter, a sexy Australian bounty hunter, upsets her libido. While the plot tends to meander, romance, humor and appealing characters will keep readers happily turning the pages. (Sept.)
