NINJA SOCCER MOMS

Once again, a corpse distracts trimmed-down Samantha Shaw both from business—Heart Mates, her dating service—and pleasure—tweaking both ultra-hot lover Gabe Pulizzi and ultra-cool suitor Logan Vance by looking into financial fiddling at the local soccer league.

Sam (Dying to Meet You, 2003, etc.) only means to help her friend Janie Tuggle get the goods on her wife-dumping ex, Chad, and knock him off the pedestal he occupies as Lake Elsinore’s most successful soccer coach. Once someone takes Chad out with a bookend, though, Sam is right behind Janie on detective Vance’s suspect list. Private eye Gabe’s no help; Chad’s new girlfriend Dara Reed is his latest client. So Sam does what any independent woman would do—hosts a lingerie party for her friend Angel. When Sophie Muffley, Chad’s office assistant, shows up along with Iris, Gabe’s mom, and Lionel Davis, a Heart Mates client who’d just as soon date the owner, it looks as her investigation is about to get a little too personal. But when Vance blackmails her into working for him, you know it won’t be long before Sam is shaking up suspects and running from the law, all in Angel’s tightest bustier.

Sam’s third is a lot racier and a smidge better plotted than the usual gutsy-single-mom-with-her-own-business-plus-two-competing-boyfriends-and-a-little-detection-on-the-side fare.