FOLLOW THE MURDER

Former party-hearty girl, coke addict, and TV hostess Faith Cassidy, now an LA psychotherapist (well, what else is she suited for with those credentials?), is dismayed to learn that one of her clients—Natalie Thorson, who frequently fantasized about killing her stockbroker husband Craig—has been arrested for his murder. Despite warnings from her sometime love Richard, her friend and colleague Michael, and every cop within the city limits, Faith goes into full bloodhound mode, eavesdropping at Craig’s favorite watering hole, Halloran’s, chatting up both Bill the bartender and Craig’s banker, Gary Parkman, who later drops dead—perhaps on his own, perhaps with a little assistance—and accosting two of Craig’s dissatisfied clients: Roberta Hill at a poorly attended little theater performance, and Jane Browning at Nirvana, a glossy spa managed by the taut-bodied Tamara. A helpful barmaid will come to an untimely end, and Richard and Faith will have their final falling-out, before all Craig’s tawdry romantic and financial shenanigans come to light and Natalie is released from jail.

The cutesy cats and omnipresent California hipsters from Death of the Party (2000) have been excised, but the goofball plotting and generic prose, alas, remain.