COVER YOUR ASSETS
by Patricia Smiley
A comically painful stroll down memory lane stresses a management consultant’s work life, her home life and especially her love life.
Tucker Sinclair can’t explain why she’s bent on proving that Cissy Brice didn’t kill her Hollywood agent husband Evan. After all, Evan was Tucker’s first love until best friend Cissy stole him. But after police detective Moses Green makes it clear that Cissy is the only suspect he’s interested in, Tucker’s willing to put Sinclair and Associates—the firm she started after her rancorous departure from Anderson and Aames (False Profits, 2004)—on hold while, at Cissy’s behest, she trots out to the pied-à-terre Evan had rented in seedy Venice Beach to retrieve his apartment key from neighbor Monique Ruiz. Finding Ruiz decamped, she chases her out to an aunt’s residence in Oxnard, ignoring the drama unfolding, in her very own bungalow, starring her mom, actress Pookie Sinclair, mom’s boyfriend Bruce and their Westie Muldoon. Worst of all, her relentless interference in the Brice case puts her on a collision course with Green’s colleague, LAPD detective Joe Deegan—the man she desperately needs to escort her to ex-husband Eric’s upcoming wedding.
Smiley’s second maintains a nice balance between whodunit and why-on-earth-does-she-keep-doing-it, with smart, sassy Tucker caught squarely in the middle.