COACHED RED-HANDED

A life coach helps solve her latest client’s murder.

If the main requirements to become a life coach are to know nothing about either human psychology or the legal system, Catherine Cooper nails them both. When famous, wealthy East Hampton romance novelist Scarlet Rubi appeals to Cat for advice about how to stop the incessant demands for more money from her sister, children, nephew, and grandchildren, who have been sponging off her for decades, Cat offers the following easy fix: Give each of them title to the home she’s allowed them to live in rent-free in return for signing a contract to never, ever, ever ask her for anything again. But before Scarlet can find out whether written agreements can reverse her relatives’ years of bad behavior overnight, or whether any court would enforce such a vague and sweeping contract, someone kills her. Even though Cat’s job description doesn’t include murder investigations, she feels obliged to act, especially when her boyfriend, police detective Steven Shepherd, informs her that she can’t leave town because she’s a suspect. She’s just promised to take her best friend, Gilley Gillespie, on a quick trip to Italy and France while his ex-husband, Michel, picks up his belongings from Gilley’s digs, which is also Cat’s guesthouse. How Cat has come to afford her East Hampton estate, why Gilley lives there, and how either of them became life coaches are left to the reader’s imagination, although author Laurie makes it clear how well regarded Cat is as a solver of life’s problems. Too bad it takes two more murders and assorted acts of mayhem for her to crack the case. At least she and Gilley go to Europe.

Piffle.