"The Debutante Dropout is back solving murder"

Andy Kendricks is a debutant dropout. She missed her own coming out party and went to art school. Now Andy manages websites for non-profit organizations. It's not like she needs money. And she believes in their causes.

But Cissy, her mother, talks her into working for her dear friend Marilee Mabry. It's supposed to be a short-term job. Marilee has gone through six webmasters already. Marilee is a Martha Stewart type and has a home show coming to TV. Marilee invites her ex-husband and his wife to the party celebrating her new show. A cat fight ensues between the two women in which one woman's hair is set on fire. Then the sprinklers go off. Andy heads to Marilee's office to turn off the live feeds she'd set up for the website. On her way the lights go off. She finally stumbles into the office and stumbles across Marilee's daughter, Kendall, on the floor of the bathroom. Andy knows she must get help. She hears sirens with help arriving, but can she get back out to them in the dark in time?

Marilee's personal trainer and boy toy, Justin, finally admits to the dr. that he had been giving Kendall herbs. Kendall and Justin have a past as well. It is determined that the herbs were harmful to Kendall.

When a murder is discovered, Andy investigates to find the killer to protect Kendall whom she has befriended. Andy finds many skeletons in the closet, but can she figure out who the real killer is and the motive in time?

I always enjoy books in this series. Andy is so down to earth, and her mother is such high society. Yet, they go well together in this book. In this book Marilee is so well crafted, she's a trip. She is your typical A type personality and feels everyone must do what she says. Andy is always the calming factor, but she has many wild adventures as well. I highly recommend this book.

Reviewed by Dawn Dowdle
Posted April 29, 2005

Summary

Website designer and high society rebel Andrea Kendricks would never have gotten involved with ego-in-pumps life- style hostess Marilee Mabry if it weren't for the underhanded machinations of Andy's upper crust mama. But thanks to Mother Cissy, Andy's donning designer duds to attend a launch party at the intolerable domestic diva's new Dallas TV studio -- and she's on hand to witness the celebration site go up in flames! Then a body turns up in the rubble, the victim, apparently, of some very foul play. Even though iron-willed Cissy isn't about to let her social calendar be upset by a little inconvenience like murder, her sometime-sleuthing daughter's got a more pressing engagement -- namely, hunting down a killer. But there are more than a few nasty messes tucked away in the Mabry closet -- and a craven assassin who has the Big D elite quaking in their cowboy boots may soon be burying Andy in hers!