"Ageless" Hollywood diva Jessica Gray is finishing the last leg of her one-woman show in St Louis, Missouri, and the nearby town of Chouteau Forest is dazzled. During the show, she humiliates three homeless women onstage, fires her entourage-not for the first time-and makes a bitter enemy of the town's powerful patriarch. After she collapses at an after-show party and is rushed to the hospital, she ignores the advice of her doctors and discharges herself in order to return to LA. On the way to the airport, she suffers a deadly coughing fit. It was poison. When Angela Richman's friend, Mario, is arrested for the murder and faces the death penalty, she is compelled to investigate. With so many grudges held against the actress and Mario's life on the line, the stakes are higher than ever.
Josie Marcus mystery-shops scarves.
Mystery shopper Josie Marcus knows her job isn’t always glamorous. Like when she has to sample greasy fast food. Now her best friend’s husband is accused of murder. Someone has killed Halley Hardwicke, the hot new designer of thousand-dollar scarves. Halley and Jake were just a little too neighborly. Josie goes undercover for clues to help Jake, and learns that Halley’s scarves were to die for.
The ultrawealthy families of Chouteau Forest may look down on a woman like death investigator Angela Richman, but they also rely on her. When a horrific car crash kills a Forest teenager, Angela is among the first on the scene. Her investigation is hardly underway, however, when she suffers a series of crippling strokes. Misdiagnosed by the resident neurologist, Dr. Gravois, and mended by gauche yet brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Jeb Travis Tritt, Angela faces a harrowing recovery.
It's a drug-addled, hallucinating Angela who learns that Dr. Gravois has been murdered...and the chief suspect is the surgeon who saved her life. Angela doesn't believe it, but can she trust her instincts? Her brain trauma brings doubts that she'll ever recover her investigative skills. But she's determined to save Dr. Tritt from a death-row sentence-even if her progress is thwarted at every turn by a powerful and insular community poised to protect its own.
The Superior Club is where Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest—and snobbiest—come to play. But for Helen Hawthorne, it’s all work and no play. As a customer care clerk, it’s her job to cater to the clients’ every little whim and take care of their every little problem.
But Helen has a very big problem of her own. After an acrimonious reunion with her ex-husband Rob, she ends up belting the bum in the mouth—which invites suspicion when Rob goes ominously missing. And when a club employee and a philandering member are found beaten to death with a golf club, the police assume Helen was the deadly duffer.
With her freedom—and yet another job—on the line, Helen has no choice but to prove that someone else at the high-class club is a low-down killer…
Angela Richman, Chouteau County death investigator, finds herself deep in the Missouri woods on a perfect spring day. But there is nothing idyllic about her grim walk-a body has been discovered in a muddy creek, and Detective Jace Budewitz wants Angela on the scene.Terri Gibbons, the popular Forest High track star who went missing eight months ago, has been found strangled. Could a message found in Terri's shoe hold the key to catching her killer? Chouteau Forest is a town of privilege and secrets, where everyone has something to hide. Can Angela overcome the many obstacles in her way to see justice served when the Forest's wealthy residents will go to any length to prevent the truth from being revealed?
Ah, the Danessa Celedine handbag. To have one is to invite envy and flaunt wealth, with each bag costing about five thousand dollars. When a big company considers paying millions for the use of the Danessa name, mystery shopper Josie Marcus is hired to shop the stores secretly. Each boutique is worse then the other. Josie's less than stellar report provokes threats of a lawsuit – until Danessa is strangled with one of her thousand-dollar snakeskin belts. Now Josie has to bag the killer to keep her job – and maybe her life.
Still living under the radar in Fort Lauderdale due to her refusal to pay her ex-husband’s spousal support, Helen Hawthorne’s latest workaday job might just be the lowest rung on the employment ladder—telemarketing.
While Helen is conducting a phone survey with the wealthy Henry “Hank” Asporth, Helen is convinced she heard a murder being committed/ With no solid proof, Helen is driven to find out what really happened with Hank and the mystery woman. But if she’s not careful, she just might end up holding a dead line of her own.
In the exclusive, gated enclave of Olympia Forest Estates, death investigator Angela Richman watches a mansion go up in a fiery blaze. With it, seventy-year-old financier Luther Delor, a drunken, bed-hopping rhinestone cowboy. Embroiled in a bitter divorce, Delor may have scandalized Chouteau Forest, but his murder has united it against the accused: Delor's twenty-year-old girlfriend, Kendra Salvato, an "outsider." With an engagement ring bigger than Chouteau County, she's being railroaded straight to death row as a gold-digging killer.
All there is against Kendra is vicious gossip and anti-Mexican rage, and both are spreading like wildfire. Meanwhile, Angela is trying to douse the flames with forensic work that's putting the Forest on edge. After all, facts could implicate one of their own. Now, sifting through the ashes of a vicious crime-and the guilty secrets of the privileged-only Angela can get to the truth, and prevent an innocent woman from getting burned.
When Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest want to discreetly trade their best barely-worn threads for cash, they bring it to Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts—which is where Helen Hawthorne finds herself selling the most chic second-hand clothing in Florida.
But the usual haggling turns homicidal when a particularly petty customer turns up dead—dangling by a darling Gucci scarf—and Helen's boss Vera is eyed as a suspect.
Helen knows Vera can drive a hard bargain but can’t believe Vera would resort to murder. And while she would like to help, a sudden tragedy forces Helen to return to St. Louis—where she has the chance to face the past she’s been running from.
Now, if Helen doesn’t quickly deal with her fugitive status—as well as her own fractious family—she won’t make it back home in time to prevent the police from making a very unfashionable arrest…
Josie Marcus mystery-shops shoes.
Undercover retail spy and single mom Josie has to mystery shop a shoe store with a salesman called Mel Poulaine, who’s just a little too interested in women’s bare feet. Josie is caught in a web of blackmail, gambling, and truly desperate housewives.
The last thing Chouteau County death investigator Angela Richman wants to do during the holidays is her job. So it's with some trepidation that she agrees to help the desperate Mr. and Mrs. LaRouche when they show up on her doorstep.Their daughter Juliet is missing. She was last seen leaving a high-school party just before midnight, and they'd like Angela's help getting their trusted local detectives involved. The officer assigned to the case-Chouteau newcomer Det. Jace Budewitz-is far too blunt and impolite for their liking. And with the weather murderously cold, they can't bear the thought that their little princess is in the harsh winter wilderness.Discreetly investigating Juliet's disappearance, Angela finds herself struggling to break through the silence from the rich teenagers who knew Juliet and their infuriatingly detached parents. She also discovers that their vicious bias against the local working class has cast a shadow over the case.The more she digs, the less Angela can comprehend the lengths the one percent will go to protect their own. Angela must work quickly as she searches for answers with the acute awareness that Juliet LaRouche edges closer to becoming just a memory...
After all she’s endured with her own marriage, divorce, and subsequent flight from alimony, Helen Hawthorne getting a job at Millicent’s Bridal Salon is ironic in the extreme. The newest client is Kiki, a wealthy witch who’s making her daughter's wedding day all about Kiki. When Kiki is found smothered to death with her daughter’s wedding dress, the cops seem to think Helen is responsible.
Now, Helen must prove her innocence before the bride and groom read their wedding vows—and the police read Helen her rights.
