FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL

An event planner’s busy schedule must make room for murder.

Mia Carina should be over the moon. Her relationship with model Shane Gambrazzo is burning so hot that it’s not beyond belief that a proposal is in the offing. Belle View Banquet Manor, her family’s catering business, is doing so well that her father, Ravello, can finally claim to be the legitimate businessman he’s always promised her he’d become. And now Giles St. James Productions wants to use Belle View to film segments of The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard, a new reality show. As if riding herd on a bunch of feisty dons and donettes in their mid-20s weren’t challenge enough for Mia, she’s soon placed in charge of the multitude of events surrounding her cousin Jamie’s upcoming wedding to Madison Wythe, whose Connecticut relatives’ belief that crackers and cheese constitute adequate refreshments for an engagement party leaves Mia’s Queens/Long Island family scandalized and famished. Of course, a good planner is never too busy for murder, and Mia gets her chance to investigate when Giles St. James himself turns up dead in the changing room while shooting a pool-themed segment of Dons of Ditmars. She focuses on finding the perp to prevent Little Donny Boldano, another of her cousins, from being charged with St. James’ murder. All this keeps Mia from dealing with the youthful indiscretion that prevents Shane from popping the question. In keeping with the Carina-Boldano clan’s credo that more is more, DiRico piles it on so thick and fast that readers can’t help loving it.

Molto mayhem.