A secret shopper turns amateur sleuth when her best friend’s husband is accused of murder in this mystery by the Anthony and Agatha Award–winning author.
Josie Marcus has an eye for the finer things in life. Unfortunately, her wallet can’t keep up—as a single mom and mystery shopper, she won’t be moving out of St. Louis’s suburbs anytime soon. Good thing her best friend, Alyce Bohannon, doesn’t mind sharing a taste of the high life in her posh gated community, Wood Winds. But the refined neighborhood turns ugly with gossip when Alyce’s neighbor, the well-heeled scarf designer Halley Hardwicke, is murdered.
Talk is cheap . . . until the detectives begin questioning Alyce’s husband, Jake, about the crime. So Josie decides to do a little sleuthing of her own, going undercover to unravel the secrets of the cliquey Wood Winds wives. Hopefully she can clear Jake’s name and uncover the truth before the killer snags another victim.
Elaine Viets has written 34 mysteries in four series: the bestselling Dead-End Job series with South Florida PI Helen Hawthorne, the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries, and the dark Francesca Vierling mysteries. With the Angela Richman Death Investigator series, Elaine returns to her hardboiled roots and uses her experience as a stroke survivor and her studies at the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course. Elaine was a director at large for the Mystery Writers of America. She's a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Lawrence Block. Elaine won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty Awards.