Sometime-sleuth Jaine Austen struggles to make
ends—and zippers—meet while living on a
freelance writer’s salary in Los Angeles. When
she’s not hunting down the latest flavor of her
favorite ice cream, she’s tracking down criminals on
her own Walk of Infamy... On the front lines of the battle
of the bulge, otherwise known as trying on bathing suits in
the communal dressing room at Loehmann’s, Jaine makes
a new friend—a wanna-be actress named Pam—and
gets a new job: sprucing up Pam’s bare-bones resume.
Their feeling of connection is mutual, so Pam invites Jaine
to join The PMS Club–a women’s support group
that meets once a week over guacamole and margaritas to
commiserate about love and life. But joining the club proves
to be more a curse than a blessing for Jaine. Though she is
warned that Rochelle, the hostess, makes a guacamole to die
for, Jaine never takes the warning literally. Until another
PMS member— Marybeth, a relentlessly perky interior
decorator—drops dead over a mouthful of the green
stuff after confessing she is having an affair with
Rochelle’s husband. Turns out that someone knew about
Marybeth’s nut allergy and added a fatal dose of
peanut oil to the dip. While Rochelle and her husband are
the obvious suspects, everyone at that night’s meeting
is under suspicion, including Jaine, putting a new job
opportunity at a conservative downtown bank in jeopardy. So,
instead of dishing dirt with The PMS Club, Jaine has to dig
up dirt on the surviving members—an alcoholic widow, a
sassy sixty- something, a too-fabulous honorary male PMS-er,
and Pam. As Jaine delves deeper, she tunes into some truly
sinister vibes, and it soon becomes clear: someone in this
club thinks getting away with murder should be a privilege
of membership...