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On a recent business trip to Dallas, one of Susan McBride's characters sat down next to me on the bus to the rental car garage. Long ironed hair, pink wool jacket, pinstriped trousers, giant diamond rings on both hands, heavily made up, and enough perfume to fill the bus, at 10am. Andrea Blevins Kendricks (Andi), to her society mother's (Cissy Blevins Kendricks) eternal regret, refused to be one of those stereotypical Texas debutantes, and instead, earns her own living designing web sites for nonprofit organizations and painting. However, when Marilee Mabry, a Martha Stewart clone, needs someone to finish her new web site, prior to the opening of her new studio where her TV show, The Sweet Life is scheduled to start shooting for national syndication, Cissy volunteers Andi. Several years earlier, Mari's husband, Gilbert, walked out, leaving Mari and her daughter nearly destitute. After talking her way into a column in the Dallas paper, Mabry has clawed her way up to a TV show and her own production company. Marilee has gone through six web designers in as many weeks, but Andi, despite being a rebel, usually caves when Cissy asks for something. Andi observes Mari's behavior. She is a martinet, always expecting people, including her daughter, Kendall, to do her bidding immediately. No one likes her very much, so when she dies suddenly, no one is too surprised. The mother-daughter relationship is examined in this cozy mystery, as well as the attitudes of Dallas society. A black family moves into the exclusive Highland Park area where Cissy lives. In fact, they move onto the same street. They are the first, and many society wannabes are shocked when Cissy invites them to her home and welcomes them to the neighborhood. McBride has a keen eye for phonies and a subtle wit that makes the books in the drop-out debutante series, BLUE BLOOD and THE GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER, a delightful reading experience, even for those who usually eschew cozies.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, November 2004
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