MURDER MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH
by Nancy Martin
Witnessing a murder temporarily inconveniences Philadelphia socialite-turned-reporter Nora Blackbird (A Crazy Little Thing Called Death, 2007, etc.) but puts her love life back on track.
Appalled that their younger sister Emma would even consider aborting the child she conceived accidentally and has no interest in raising, Libby and Nora Blackbird demonstrate how easy it is to parent. Libby dumps her brood of five, including infant Maximus, on Nora in order to recuperate at the Ritz-Carlton on the dime of chef Jacque Petite, who knocked her down with his Rolls-Royce on the way to the Chocolate Festival. Equally maternal Nora leaves them in the charge of, well, whoever happens to be at home, so she can go into the city to figure out who pushed philanthropist Hoyt Cavendish out the Market Street office window of his partner, investment banker Lexie Paine. Suspects abound. Cosmetics magnate Elena Zanzibar and her actor grandson Chad are mad because Hoyt embezzled their fortune; Lexie’s mad because Hoyt punched a hole in her favorite Vermeer; and Hoyt’s son Tierney is just plain mad. When Tierney kidnaps the Blackbird sisters, Nora’s beloved but mobbed-up boyfriend Michael Abruzzo comes to the rescue. And once again Nora wonders whether she, whose parents swindled thousands out of their fellow bluebloods, could ever connect with someone whose kinfolk were common crooks.
No suspense, no detection, not even much chocolate.