I Need You to Read This

A bored New Yorker gets her dream job—and a potential stalker—in Maxwell’s entertaining if uneven follow-up to The Golden Spoon. Alex Marks spends dull days working as a pharmaceutical copywriter and reading the New York Herald’s Dear Constance advice column. She’s shaken when she learns Francis Keen, the longtime author of Dear Constance, has been murdered. One night, after a few too many glasses of wine, Alex decides to apply to be Francis’s replacement. To her astonishment, she gets the job, allowing her to confirm what she’s always suspected: that she’s a great writer and a better advice dispenser. Soon, however, Alex picks up on a sinister undercurrent at the Herald involving bad blood between the editor and the owner, and starts receiving threatening letters that question her fitness for the job. Worried she might become the next target for Francis’s killer, she enlists a former cop and a canny waitress at the diner she frequents to help her investigate. Meanwhile, a writer who goes by Lost Girl sends increasingly distressing letters to Dear Constance. Maxwell maintains scintillating tension throughout, but the overheated finale arrives a little too abruptly. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Aug.)