Killer Reunion

February 8, 2016
McKevett’s middling 21st Savannah Reid mystery (after 2015’s Killer Gourmet) takes the proprietor of the Midnight Magnolia Detective Agency in San Carmelita, Calif., and her husband, Det. Sgt. Dirk Coulter, to her Georgia hometown for a high school reunion, where it seems everything is frozen in time. Savannah, who had a hard childhood and was often bullied, is itching for some overdue revenge. And it turns out that other members of her class have old scores of their own to settle. Jeanette Parker has not changed her nasty ways and has continued to make new enemies, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when someone decides to get rid of Jeannette once and for all. Savannah, who has a history with Tom Stafford, now the local sheriff, becomes suspect number one. Series fans will gobble up this mix of sorghum syrup and vitriol, but newcomers may struggle to care what happens to the characters, many of whom are too polite to say what they really think about others. Agent: Richard Curtis, Richard Curtis Associates.

January 15, 2016
Private eye Savannah Reid (Killer Gourmet, 2015, etc.) gets to relive every single trauma of her childhood at her high school reunion. It's hard to imagine why Savannah wants to go back and see all the classmates who humiliated her for being poor and homely as a child. Maybe the reunion gives her an excuse to be in McGill, Georgia, along with most of her eight siblings--not counting Macon, who's locked up for yet another DWI--when they celebrate the birthday of her beloved Granny Reid. Maybe it's to show off her spiffy new spouse, Detective Sgt. Dirk Coulter. Whatever the reason, the trip is a train wreck. Jeanette Parker, mean as ever, taunts Savannah from the get-go. Since her rich, elderly husband recently bit the dust, Jeanette's got plenty of bling to wave under the detective's nose. And Savannah can hardly forget how Jeanette seduced her high school boyfriend, Tommy Stafford. When the purple-frocked princess makes fun of Dirk, that's it--Savannah cold-cocks her in the parking lot. Jeanette walks away from that fracas, but the next day she isn't so lucky. Her body is found in the lake, inside her purple Cadillac, with a wound to the head that looks as if it just might have come from the stiletto heel Savannah's sister lent her. Tom Stafford, now the local sheriff, has no choice but to swear out a warrant for his ex-girlfriend, and pretty soon Savannah is in the McGill jailhouse listening to indecent proposals from Yukon Bill, her octogenarian cellmate. Can Dirk find Jeanette's killer and spring his lovely wife, or will Savannah have to bust out of the hoosegow to help him solve the case? The trip home has a dampening effect on the usually sanguine Savannah, who can't seem to keep her eyes on the prize.

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