Never mess with a hungry woman—or underestimate her stamina.
Is it so terrible to sneak a Baby Ruth once in a while? Is it worth breaking up a marriage? Lauren Prescott’s dentist husband thinks so and decamps with their cash, their stocks, their furniture and maybe his new bimbo receptionist. Desperate to track him down and needing a job quick, Lauren pitches a story to City Magazine editor Paul O’Neal: How about an article on fitness guru Stan Harris, who died while jogging? Paul agrees, and practically before she can get her next Baby Ruth unwrapped, Lauren is interviewing the guru’s two wives, his fat daughter and gay son and his good buddy Dr. Elizabeth, and listening to an autopsy report describing an overdose of potassium injected between Stan’s toes. And that’s only the first murder Lauren learns about. She and her daughters Em and Katie, in pursuit of the absconding dentist, stumble across his dead office manager, and then her mother. Did the dentist do them in? Did the mob? Do their deaths have anything in common with the fitness expert’s murder? Will Lauren solve the mystery, get her article written and reclaim her life before her supply of Baby Ruths runs out?
Chatty and endearing in a Susan Isaacs sort of way, although the plot of Stuyck’s debut ultimately falls apart.
