Beware Beware--A Juniper Song Mystery

June 9, 2014
At the start of Cha’s engaging sequel to 2013’s Follow Her Home, Daphne Freamon, a painter who lives in New York, hires Juniper Song, fledgling Los Angeles PI, to trail her boyfriend, Jamie Landon, ghostwriter for film star Joe Tilley. As Jamie, whom Daphne suspects is using and possibly selling cocaine, cruises the L.A. party scene, the two women develop a long-distance friendship over the phone. Then Joe is murdered, the police zero in on Jamie, and Song’s assignment changes to proving his innocence. After Daphne arrives in town, a sinister man stalking Song’s roommate is shot, and both PI and police suspect a link between the cases. Song soon becomes caught in a complex plot involving deception, betrayal, and revenge. Cha follows noir conventions, with Daphne as femme fatale and Song forced into morally ambiguous choices, but she also offers a plucky heroine, warm secondary characters, and a vivid portrait of L.A.’s Koreatown. Agent: Ethan Bassoff, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin.

July 15, 2014
AKorean-American woman drifts from Yale into a job as a private investigator.Juniper Song's efforts as an amateur sleuth got her best friend killed (FollowHer Home, 2013). Now her friend Chaz Lindley, who's also her boss at thefirm where she's working as an apprentice, gives her a case of her own. NewYork artist Daphne Freamon wants Song to keep an eye on her boyfriend, JamieLandon. Jamie's working in Los Angeles as a writer for movie star Joe Tilley, and Daphne finds some of his behavior suspicious. Tailing Jamie tells Song thathe spends a lot of time partying and probably dealing drugs. When Tilley endsup dead, wrists slashed, in the bathtub of a Hollywood hotel, Jamie, the onlyone left in the suite after a wild party, becomes a person of interest. AfterDaphne flies in from New York, the relationship she and Song were building onthe phone becomes stronger as Song tries to help Jamie. Problems erupt inSong's own life when her roommate, Lori, whom she considers almost a youngersister, is suddenly pursued by a dangerous gangster who has some hold over heruncle. Song turns up information about Daphne and Jamie's past that raisesdoubts in her mind about the roles they are playing in Tilley's murder, but shestill trusts the charismatic couple. Even after Daphne breaks up with Jamieonce he's arrested for Tilley's murder, she still pays Song to prove himinnocent. Song's efforts in both cases get her in trouble, but like her idolPhilip Marlowe, she's determined to do the right thing.Danger, moral ambiguities, noir atmosphere and twists a snake would find hard tofollow abound in this cautionary tale.

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July 1, 2014
Apprentice PI Juniper Song usually does little more than track cheating spouses, and her new case seems to be more of the same. Daphne Freamon is worried that her boyfriend, Jamie Landon, recently hired as a ghostwriter for Hollywood star Joe Tilley, is not only doing drugs but also dealing. So Song tracks Landon and is nearby when Langdon finds Tilley dead after a party, from what initially looks like suicide but is ruled murder. Landon, a man Song has come to like, is targeted as the prime suspect, and Song's simple case is suddenly more complex and attracting media attention. As she continues to uncover secrets, Song finds herself smack in the middle of a skillfully planned scenario with a steadily increasing body count and no good way out. In her second outing, Korean Song defies the stereotype of the Asian American woman, working to overcome her background and what she suffered in Cha's debut, Follow Her Home (2013), and facing a formidable moral dilemma in the process. This is prime L.A. noir with a feminist slant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)