ICING IVY

Literary agent Jane Stuart (Stabbing Stephanie, 2001, etc.) isn’t all that happy to hear from Ivy Benson. After all, relations between them have been pretty cool ever since Ivy’s daughter, Marlene, got killed while working as a nanny for Jane’s young son Nick. And Ivy’s shady new boyfriend, Johnny Baglieri, doesn’t thrill Jane either. Besides, Jane has just promised Rhoda Kagan and Adam Forrest, new owners of the Mt. Munsee Lodge, that she’ll run a weeklong workshop for aspiring writers. But Ivy’s pleas to reconnect with her former best friend are so impassioned that Jane gives in, inviting her to share their Christmas Eve dinner of curried cascadura (provided by Florence, Marlene’s replacement) and even allowing her and Johnny to tag along at Mt. Munsee. Bad move. Johnny develops a thing for aspiring romance writer Carla Santino. A guy with a gun shows up and chases him off into the woods. And Ivy turns up on the frozen pond with an ice pick in her throat. Now Jane is hellbent to discover Ivy’s murderer; after all, she explains to her boyfriend, Detective Stanley Greenberg—who’d just as soon she left police work to the police—Ivy’s her best friend! Not Winky’s new kittens, not Stanley’s warnings, not even plot logic (first she wants a quiet New Year’s Eve with Nick, Stanley, and Florence—if she’s free; then she’s off to a party with no provision for babysitting) can deter Jane from her noble goal.

Continuity, please. Marshall’s reasonable plot gets deep-sixed by Jane’s abrupt, unmotivated changes of heart.