ISBN-10: 0451415256
ISBN-13: 978-0451415257
Publisher: Penguin Group
Line: NAL Hardcover
Release Date: August 6, 2013
Pages: 384
Retail Price: 23.95
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Genre: Mystery
Rating:
Someone’s getting crossed off the register.
Nora Blackbird may have been to the manor borne, but these days money is so tight, she can’t afford to lose her job as a society columnist. So when her new boss at the Philadelphia Intelligencer—Australian tabloid editor Gus Hardwicke—tells her to work the celebrity gossip beat or start checking the want ads, the choice is easy.
Now Nora’s writing a profile on billionaire fashion designer Swain Starr, who recently retired to build a high-tech organic farm with his new wife, Zephyr, a former supermodel. But before Nora can get the story, the mogul is murdered. And now Gus wants her to snap up an exclusive on who killed Starr before the cops do.
But solving a celebrity murder isn’t easy with a home life as colorful as Nora’s. Her sort-of-husband, Mick, a former mobster, is associating once again with unsavory characters. Her sister Libby is on a mission to get her diabolical twins on stage or screen with the help of an unscrupulous former child star. And the youngest Blackbird sister, Emma, just got kicked out of the house by Mick—who refuses to explain why.
If anything can bring the blue-blooded Blackbird sisters together, it’s a murder investigation involving high-society events, glamorous people, and the disappearance of a genetically perfect pig that may or may not be basking in the sun at Blackbird Farm. They’ll all have to pull together this time, because if Nora can’t bring home the bacon, she might have to exchange her bucolic estate for a cramped walk-up.
Series: Blackbird Sisters Mystery (Book 9)
Review
For fans of: Rhys Bowen
Destitute debutante Nora Blackbird is a society columnist, not a gossip monger, so when her new boss at the Philadelphia Intelligencer assigns her a feature on fashion designer turned organic farmer Swain Starr and orders her to either dish dirt or pound pavement, she balks; what will people think? Her house is falling down around her ears, though, and her cupboards are bare, so Nora’s just got to cross her fingers and hope for the sake of her own good name that Starr is squeaky clean.
Any prayer she had of getting away with a tasteful profile goes out the window, though, when Starr’s ex-wife shows up drunk at one of his parties, hurls a host of nasty accusations, and takes a shot (literally) at her younger, prettier replacement. And as if that display weren't sensational enough, Starr's found dead the very next day – stabbed repeatedly with a pitchfork and left among the pigs. Now her boss not only wants her to publicly expose the murdered man's secrets, but to figure out who killed him, as well. (Scoops sell papers, dontcha know.) Can Nora save her job and solve the mystery without sacrificing her reputation – or her life?
Little Black Book of Murder is the ninth of Nancy Martin's Blackbird Sisters Mysteries. It's Rhys Bowen meets Aaron Spelling with a dash of Lisa Lutz thrown in for good measure, and it’s an incredibly entertaining read. Sophisticated yet smutty, heartbreaking yet hilarious, this book contains more sex, lies, intrigue, and family dysfunction than a sweeps-week episode of Dynasty. The pace is quick, the plot is clever and multifaceted, and while the references to the economic downturn, the failing newspaper industry, and the growing popularity of organic farming and the slow-food movement firmly root the story in the here and now, Martin’s writing has a timeless quality about it that guarantees this series will endure.
Martin’s characters are fantastic – rich, textured, and wonderfully well developed. The relationships she’s cultivating between her series leads are remarkably nuanced and compelling as hell. And the fact that nearly every cast member is keeping at least one secret means that there’s more than just one mystery here to be solved. This not only keeps the tension high, but keeps the reader guessing, as well, which makes for a book that’s nearly impossible to put down.
Reviewed by Kat