"A very urban-noir chick-lit mystery"

When the two Texas women C.J. Wallingford and Maude Stowe get on the hotel elevator, a pleasant looking man joins them. The two ladies, who are wearing a lot of heavy gold jewelry and earning a lot of money, think nothing of the extra passenger even after he whips out a stiletto and cuts their throats. After he robs them he dumps their bodies on the floor where the hotel laundry is done.

The husbands of the dead women hire private investigator Franklin Novak to find out who killed their wives since they don't believe the NYPD will find the killer. The owners of the hotel where the two women were staying, Stuart and Simon Apple, are very cooperative with the private detective, giving his son Felix and is friend Soraya, who are apprenticing to become sleuths, a free suite and tickets to the Knicks' game. As two other Apple properties are also hit, it looks like one of the Apples is trying to squeeze the other two out. The case becomes very personal to the group when someone they know is killed.

Once again Felix and Soraya demonstrate a rare wisdom and inner strength as they try to track down a killer despite the fact that she is grieving the death of a loved one. Felix, who cares about her, knows intuitively when to give her space or when to offer a shoulder to lean on when the pain becomes too great. KILLING COUSINS is a very urban- noir chick-lit mystery that will appeal to mystery fans who like the unique and unusual.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 19, 2003

Summary

A murderer is loose in Manhattan and he's making hotel guests his victims...

When the wives of two billionaire Texans are brutally murdered in New York's swanky Sutherland Hotel, Franklin and Felix Novak and Soraya Navarro need to move fast before the killer strikes again. Hoping to find a suspect, Felix and Soraya check in to the Sutherland, posing as wealthy lovebirds on vacation. Meanwhile Franklin looks into the shady dealings of the hotel's infamous owners, the Apples.

Is somebody trying to get vengeance on the Apples? Or are the Apple cousins, deranged Morris and slick Simon, fighting for power and using guests as ammunition? As Felix and Soraya close in on the killer, their relationship catches fire, while a corpse with a bullet in the belly throws suspicion on the least likely suspect.