Dead Lift

October 15, 2010

A part-time investigator feels betrayed when her boss puts her at the service of the lawyer who defended her husband's killer.

Emily Locke (Final Approach, 2009) thought her baby girl was gone forever, stolen by the gang that murdered her husband. She's so grateful that Annette was returned to her and her adoption by Nick and Betsy Fletcher voided that she's moved to Houston so that her daughter can be near the couple who raised her for five years, unaware that they could never become her legal parents. Now that Emily works for private investigator Richard Cole, she never imagines that her old friend could assign her to a case for Mick Young, the attorney who represented Annette's kidnappers at trial. Once she finds out, she's furious, but not furious enough to abandon Claire Gatson, Young's latest client. Claire's an enigma—cold enough to have had a series of affairs that killed her three marriages, but passionate about staying out of jail to raise her two sons. She denies knowing Wendell Platt even though her fingerprints were found on the weapon that killed the plastic surgeon. Looking for an alternative theory of the crime plunges Emily into the Tone Zone, a fitness club cum spa run by Diana King, wife of Wendell's business partner. Led by her best friend Jeannie, a diva in rhinestone flip-flops, Emily navigates the world of Zumba and Body Pump to track a suspect with more than killer abs.

In spite of its silly confrontation scene, Rachel's second case will give your inner detective a good workout.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2010

Emily Locke, a single mother whose husband was murdered, is rebuilding her life in Houston, TX, by working part-time for her PI friend Richard Cole. His client is wealthy Claire Gaston, who is charged with killing a prominent plastic surgeon. VERDICT Stubbornly ferreting out the truth even when it places her in danger makes the clever and charming Emily an appealing new sleuth.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2010
In this second in the Emily Locke series, single-mother Emily has relocated to Houston but continues to work for private investigator Richard Cole. Socialite Claire Gaston is in jail awaiting trial for the murder of plastic surgeon Dr. Platt, and Emilys job is to help find evidence that will clear her. It doesnt help that Claire changes her story every time Emily sees her, and it definitely doesnt help to know that Claires attorney is Mick Young, who defended Emilys husbands murderer. Clues lead to sessions at a fancy ladies health club managed by the wife of a plastic surgeon who was Dr. Platts partner and Claires lover; Emilys best friend, Jeannie, in town for a visit, tries to use the health club to help Emily. Readers will care a lot for vulnerable Emily, who desperately wants her daughter to call her Mommy, even as she works through the tangle of suspects and motives in a case where nothing is quite as it seems. First-time readers of the series will have no problems diving right in.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)