Dime If I Know

July 15, 2013
Accountant Cleopatra Jones shifts into overdrive when her boyfriend is accused of murder. Cleo's relationship with Rafe Golden was supposed to be casual: a little golf, a little flirting, a little steamy sex. But the lovebug has sunk his teeth into the sultry redhead, and now all she can think about is how to get the handsome golf pro to take their affair to the next level. That's too bad, because Rafe faces bigger decisions than how many carats to offer Cleo. His ex-lover Starr Jeffries has been shot to death at the seedy Catoctin View Motel a little after Rafe's red Jaguar was spotted there by approximately everyone in town. Rafe insists that since he didn't kill Starr, he has nothing to worry about. Police detective Britt Radcliff thinks otherwise. Cleo knows Britt isn't always right. After all, he wrongly accused Cleo's mama, Delilah, of killing fellow churchgoer Erica Hodges (On The Nickel, 2011). So how can she get Rafe to accept her help? She hires him a lawyer, attends Starr's funeral, even questions Starr's sister Jenny Kulp, discovering that Starr has a 5-year-old daughter named Kylie. As Rafe refuses to return any of Cleo's increasingly urgent phone calls, she frantically plots ways to get him on board. It isn't until his overbearing sister Regina turns up that a window opens into Rafe's family history. Cleo begins to see Rafe as a product of his dysfunctional environment, and Rafe begins to see Cleo as an asset. Still, it takes two to tango, and while Charlie, Cleo's ex, proposes at every opportunity, Rafe continues down his own path. As Toussaint makes her third entry into the sassy-working-girl-with-messed-up-love-life-solves-mysteries race, you keep hoping that someone will send Cleo a copy of He's Just Not That into You.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.