VOICES IN THE WARDROBE

Murder and enemas at a San Diego Spa that seems to specialize in treating addicts by killing them or driving them crazy.

Beverly Hills literary agent Charlie Greene has no use for the ministrations of the Sea Spa at Marina del Sol, but her friend Maggie Stutzman has agreed to spend five days there to get the toxins out of her system, so Charlie agrees to join her if she can duck out when the going gets too tough. As she’s returning from a lobster dinner with her ex-boyfriend, actor-turned-director Mitch Hilsten, she learns that celebrity motivational speaker Dr. Judy Judd has been murdered and Deputy Gordy Solomon considers Maggie a prime suspect. Other victims swiftly swell the ranks of the dead while Charlie (The Rampant Reaper, 2002, etc.) and her posse mark time by ridiculing spas, prescription drugs and Hollywood pitches (“Nancy Drew meets J. Lo in outer space. And the universe will never be the same!”). Some of the potshots at these tempting targets sparkle, some fizzle, and then Maggie’s disappearance cues an elaborate, perilous, casualty-rich rescue mission that takes Charlie seriously out of her depth without gaining any points for realism. Somewhere around Chapter 40, the mystery is solved.

More zanies than a launch party, most of them making only a fleeting impression before they’re killed or arrested.