The socialite's guide to sleuthing and secrets

In Golden's effervescent third whodunit featuring Evelyn Murphy (after The Socialite's Guide to Death and Dating), the hotel heiress investigates the poisoning of a jeweler in 1958 New York City. Evelyn rarely leaves her suite at the Pinnacle Hotel, which her father owns. She's sipping champagne at the Pinnacle's restaurant one evening when her personal assistant arrives with a tiara from one of Evelyn's admirers. The flash of diamonds attracts the attention of a woman nearby, who invites Evelyn to join her and her colleagues at Ladies Love to Sparkle, a costume jewelry company, for drinks. What begins as a promising social opportunity quickly turns deadly when Lois Mitchell, the head of the jewelry team, is poisoned moments after Evelyn meets her. Things go from bad to worse when a gentleman thief starts stealing luxury goods from the hotel's wealthy clientele. To preserve the family brand, Evelyn once again dons her sleuthing cap, stumbling through comic encounters with hotel staffers and guests until she's able to tie both mysteries in a bow. Golden's characters are broad and the plot is familiar, but Evelyn--for all her self-importance--is an immensely likable heroine. This delivers a welcome dose of escapism. Agent: Madelyn Burt, Stonesong Literary. (Mar.)

A third case of murder makes 1958 a banner year for the Pinnacle Hotel in all the worst ways. Evelyn Murphy, the 21-year-old daughter of the hotel's owner, rarely leaves the premises because, unlike most socialites, she's agoraphobic. But that's alright, because criminal complications keep coming to her. As she gets up to leave the round of champagne she's shared with Lois Mitchell and three of her underlings at Ladies Love to Sparkle, who hope to recruit her to join them in selling costume jewelry, Lois clutches her throat and dies a few hours later of anaphylactic shock induced by shrimp stock. Marco, the Pinnacle chef, insists that there isn't any shellfish in his whole kitchen, so it looks like the fatal allergen was deliberately introduced into Lois' food or drink by someone who was actually on the scene--salespeople Prudence, Ruth, or Veronica, or maybe Evelyn herself, who naturally starts detecting. As if Lois' death isn't enough for the Pinnacle to live down,New York Times journalist Dottie Stewart--who seems to have it in for both Evelyn and the hotel she'll inherit--eagerly reports that Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Taylor, who were married at the Pinnacle 13 years ago and have celebrated their anniversary there every year since, became the latest victims of Manhattan's Gentleman Thief the night they returned home from their latest visit. Everyone thinks room 1313 is haunted; could it be that the entire hotel is cursed? A gamely nostalgic valentine that's less inventive than its predecessors, until the heroine's climactic abduction to Newark. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.