A GROOM WITH A VIEW

Chicago’s feisty Jane Jeffrey (The Merchant of Menace, 1998, etc.) will take on almost any challenge. The latest is a favor (with pay) for acquaintance Livvy Thatcher, who runs her father Jack’s novelty business and is about to marry slickly handsome Dwayne Hessling. Impressed with a neighborhood event run by Jane, Livvy hires her to manage the wedding: caterer, florist, and so on. It’s to be held at the old Thatcher hunting lodge, long disused. Jane, helped by her best friend Shelley Nowack, is hard at work setting up rooms for family members, consulting with Larkspur the florist, Mr. Willis the caterer, and Mrs. Crossthwaite the dressmaker, who’s still working on the dresses for bridesmaids Eden Matthews, Layla Shelton, and Kitty Wilson. Before they’re finished, Mrs. Crossthwaite takes a fatal spill down the lodge’s staircase under circumstances suspicious enough to bring Jane’s detective boyfriend Mel VanDyne onto the scene. There’s much gossip about a treasure rumored to be stowed somewhere on the premises by the family’s wealthy founder; a bitter argument between Livvy and her father just before the ceremony, and a shocking discovery soon after it. All of this while Jane deals with the glitches endemic to the occasion and solves a murder to boot. Lots of subplots that go nowhere, but the cheerful flow of incidents and girl-talk makes Jane’s 11th outing as fun and forgettable as all the others.