Who would have thought that the teenage pop star, Heather
Mills, would find herself as an assistant resident advisor
at New York College? Well that's exactly what happens
when her mother empties her bank account and runs off to
Brazil with her faithful manager in tow. Next thing she
knows, Heather's career tanks and she is forced to come up
with a plan B. Too add insult to injury, Heather gets
dumped by her fellow teenage pop star boyfriend, Jordan,
and winds up homeless, penniless and in need of a job.
When Jordan's private detective brother, Cooper, comes to
the rescue and offers Heather a room in exchange for some
light bookkeeping, Heather is convinced that things are
looking up. With New York College picking up the tab,
Heather embarks on her new career as an assistant resident
advisor filled with naïve freshman girls, neurotic student
workers and a flamboyant dining hall cashier who insists
on calling all of the students movie stars. What she
didn't factor into the equation were two freshman girls in
her residence hall dying her first week on the job.
When Detective Canavan pronounces the girls' deaths just
an unfortunate silly freshman prank gone awry, Heather's
wheels start turning and her detective radar is activated.
Luckily for her, she just so happens to be bunking with
the hottest private detective in New York City. Too bad
the picture that comes to mind when he thinks of her is
not a sexy blond bombshell but rather a Calamity Jane.
How is she going to prove to everyone that these deaths
were no accidents while at the same time land the man of
her dreams? Heather must now put away her bubblegum and
tight blue jeans from her former teenage pop star life and
trade them in for a cloak and dagger if she wants to
become the Nancy Drew of Fischer Hall and solve this
mystery.
The prolific Meg Cabot's debut mystery novel delivers the
perfect balance of humor, romance and intrigue. Her witty
repartee makes the reader laugh out loud, while her gift
of gab makes her writing flow. Her in-depth character
development enables the reader to feel sympathy for the
criminal, while at the same time feel compassion for the
victim. Never a disappointment, Cabot's new crime series
is a welcome addition with many twists and turns yet to be
solved.
Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-
idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two --
and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life
savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to
Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless
mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly
happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the
American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm
director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until
the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence
hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft.
The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the
death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful
mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls
do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen -- not
the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the
brownstone where she lives -- even when more students
start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly
sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on
yet another new career: as spunky girl detective!
But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering
crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially
fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly
ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't
belong . . .