DEAD EX

What’s a gal to do when her best friend is suspected of murder?

Greeting-card designer Wollstonecraft Shelley drags her six-foot frame out of bed with her boyfriend, FBI hunk Simon Alexander, to console her pal Joey Rafferty Horowitz about the cancer death of a former lover of them both, soap-opera mogul David Zetrakis. But wait a minute. Cancer didn’t kill him; a bullet to his handsome head did. Was it murder, or assisted suicide? And did Joey, recently on the outs with her hubby Elliot, have anything to do with it? The cops zero in on her, but friends know better, don’t they, and Wollie and Fredreeq, another chum, take up Joey’s defense. She sure needs it, because Elliot is about to die too while midnight surfing. Enlisting her Uncle Theo and his temporary boarder Apollo, on a student visa to Cal Tech from Greece, Wollie (Dating is Murder, 2005, etc.) visits the soap set, bandying bon mots with cast and crew, and soon has troubles of her own. Simon asks her to move out for a while; network execs dye her hair neon orange (don’t ask); and she’s lured into a room that’s about to be blown up on the soap during sweeps week.

For drama, wit and just plain fun, every life (and death) needs a little Wollie.