HOW TO BOOK A MURDER

Kuhn auditions a new heroine who has a lot in common with the protagonist of her academic mysteries, most recently The Study of Secrets (2020).

Because her sister, Lucy, hasn’t been able to keep up the special-events schedule that brought in extra money to Starlit Bookshop, new Ph.D. Emma Starrs gives up her chance at college teaching to help her family keep their store going. Fortune seems to favor them when much-married Tabitha Baxter, Emma’s mean-girl nemesis back in high school, arrives at their store complaining that her mystery-night party planner has gone AWOL. Thinking that this gig could solve their problems, Emma offers to facilitate the party. Apart from the inevitable sniping from Tabitha and her equally mean friends, things go well until Tabitha’s latest husband, a college dean, is murdered in the middle of the party, leaving Emma and her aunt, a college professor and mystery writer, as suspects. Although Emma has no motive, Nora, who teaches at the college where Tip Baxter was a dean, is in a long-running fight to get the English department moved to a better space. Of course the spouse is always a suspect, but Tabitha’s money and position help shield her despite the fact that she’s awfully friendly with one of her exes. If they’re to clear their names and keep Tabitha’s bad-mouthing from destroying their livelihoods, Emma sees that they may have to solve this murder on their own.

A nice mix of interpersonal relations and a heroine working to sort out the obligatory red herrings.