Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1083608 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In Waldman's fifth well-plotted Mommy-Track mystery (after 2003's Death Gets a Time-Out), PI and former public defender Juliet Applebaum, with another baby on the way, needs a new home almost as badly as she and her partner in her PI business, Al Hockey, need a new case. When in doubt, shop, so Juliet goes house hunting. One place she looks at really stands out—the one with the body in the bath. It seems a solution is at hand to both problems: if Juliet and Al can solve the murder, then Juliet and her family can buy the house. But who would kill a washed-up, bit-part actress? The deeper Juliet and Al dig, the more motives they find for the victim to have murdered someone herself. Juliet is a wonderful invention, warm, loving and sympathetic to those in need, but unintimidated by the L.A. entertainment industry she must enter to search for clues. An underlying theme concerns the extraordinary lengths to which people go to look beautiful, and the great weight put on physical appearance in determining success in Hollywood. The suspense builds slowly—it takes almost the full length of the book before a motive for the vicious killing becomes clear—but what a motive, what a resolution and how clever of Juliet to figure everything out.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Juliet Applebaum, public defender turned stay-at-home-mom and private investigator, is pregnant with her third child. The family apartment is suddenly too small, so she is looking for an affordable house. Her friend, Kat, a reluctant real-estate agent, offers to show her some homes, and the one that she really loves comes complete with a dead body in the guesthouse. Since her detective agency has no business, she decides to find the killer, hoping that it will give her a better chance to buy the house. The investigation takes her from the cut-throat real-estate business to the equally harsh entertainment world, where has-been sitcom stars will do anything to get work. As always, Waldman uses humor to portray the Los Angeles scene while making some serious points about what is really important in life. This thoroughly modern cozy will be popular. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved