Sex, Murder and a Double Latte

From Publishers Weekly Death imitates art in Davis's playful debut about crime novelist and wisecracking interracial Bay Area hipster Sophie Katz, who possesses either an overactive imagination or a keen awareness of criminal behavior patterns. When rapper JJ Money and the movie producer interested in optioning Sophie's novel both die in scenes lifted from their respective works, Sophie is the only one who sees the connection. Soon, it seems someone is reenacting the ominous details (vandalized car, crank calls, mysteriously broken wine glass) of her bestseller, and she fears that she's the next target. Sophie turns a suspicious eye on sexy bad-boy Russian-Israeli Anatoly Darinsky: he's either a homicidal stalker or prime boyfriend material. When the San Francisco police scoff at Sophie's suspicions, the plucky writer turned amateur sleuth enlists her less-than-intrepid circle of friends; drawn in broad strokes, they include gay hairstylist Marcus, clueless wallflower Mary Ann and savvy sex-toy aficionado Dena. Davis keeps the tone light throughout, as Sophie maintains her irreverent sense of humor even as the peril mounts. Though the story serves as a book-length ad for Starbucks, as the title unfortunately hints, and Sophie's over-the-top scheming can strain credibility more than it amuses, readers sympathetic to the relentlessly sassy heroine will find this a thoroughly readable romp. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist San Francisco settings enliven this high-spirited first mystery. Sophie Katz, a biracial, half-Jewish mystery writer, has just finished a book and is ready for some relaxation--until she discovers a few things amiss in her apartment, suggesting an intruder who is leaving signs that he or she was there. Then, when someone Sophie knows is murdered, she realizes that the violence is escalating, and the villain appears to be acting out scenes from one of her books. Davis' strength definitely lies in character development: were they 30 years older and living in Miami, sarcastic Sophie and her two best girlfriends, ditzy Mary Ann and nymphomaniac Dena, could be the Golden Girls. Sophie's gay friend Marcus adds some fun (and a lot of hairspray) to the mix, and her current flame, enigmatic Russian Anatoly Darinsky, is strong, sexy--and possibly the murderer. Sophie's next outing will be even more enjoyable if Davis doesn't try quite so hard to be clever. As with a good latte, a little froth is fine--but substance is what satisfies. Jenny McLarin Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Sex, Murder And A Double Latte By Kyra Davis Red Dress Ink Copyright © 2005 Kyra DavisAll right reserved. ISBN: 0373895194 "If Alicia Bright had learned one lesson in life it was that the more settled things seemed to be, the more likely they were to get messed up."xa0— Sex, Drugs, and Murder The downside of writing sex scenes is that my mother reads my books. Until I die I will be haunted by the memory of my mother confronting me after reading my first novel. She stood in the living room of my San Francisco apartment with one slightly arthritic hand resting on her robust hip and the other waving my book in front of my face. "I ask you," she said, "how can a nice Jewish girl write such a thing? It's not bad enough you should give me ulcers with all this talk of killing, but now you have to write about naked people too? I thought only shiksas wrote such things." I somehow resisted the impulse to run and made the stupid mistake of trying to reason with her."No, Mama," I said, "smut is nondenominational." But my mother wasn't satisfied with that, so she highlighted the scenes, took the book to her rabbi and asked him for his opinion of her daughter, the sex fiend. The rabbi, who in all likelihood was just slightly less mortified than I was, assured her that writing about sex between two consenting adults within a loving, albeit edgy relationship was in no way a violation of the Torah. After that my mother approached almost every member of the congregation, proudly showed them my book and said things like, "Can you believe this? My daughter the author. And you should read the sex scenes. Now if she would just do some of the things she writes about, I could be a grandmother already." I don't go to that synagogue anymore. Finding a new congregation was really the only way to avoid embarrassment, since blending into the background was not an option for me. With the exception of my father, I am the only black temple member that Sinai has ever had, which makes me pretty easy to spot. My nationality is an endless source of entertainment for the public. My skin is the color of a well-brewed latte (double shot), and while the mass of textured hair that hangs to my shoulders is frizzy, it's not exactly 'fro material, so people are constantly mistaking me for Brazilian, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Egyptian, Israelixa0— you name it.I am spokeswoman for all people. Or at least all people with a slutty imagination. I finished typing the details of my hero's and heroine's erogenous zones and switched scenes to the apartment of the gourmet chef who was about to be bludgeoned to death with a large toaster oven.How long would it take him to die? Ten minutes, fifteen? I started at the sound of my buzzer going off and checked the time on the bottom right of my computer screen. Shit. My hands balled up into two tight fists. There's nothing worse than walking away from a keyboard while on a roll. I tapped ctrl S and walked to the entryway to buzz in my guests. I listened as the sound of heavy heels trailed by rubber soles pounded up three stories' worth of stairs. "How are you holding up?" Dena gave my arm a quick squeeze before peeling off her leather blazer and draping it over a dining chair. Mary Ann followed her into the apartment and threw her arms around my neck before I had a chance to respond. "Oh my God, Sophie, I'm so sorry! I've never known anyone who's done anything like that. I think I would just be a wreck if I were in your shoes." I pulled away from the stranglehold and searched Mary Ann's blue eyes for some clue as to what she was talking about. "Okay, I give. Were you speaking in code or am I just so sleep deprived that the English language no longer makes sense to me?" Dena raised a thick Sicilian eyebrow and seated herself on the armrest of my sofa. "You haven't turned on the TV news today, have you?" "Well, I read the morning paper, but no, I didn't see the news shows. You know me, when I'm writing I sometimes tune outxa0— " "Tolsky killed himself, Sophie. They found him last night." Okay, I was definitely sleep deprived, because there was no way that Dena had just said what I thought she said. "I can't imagine how this could possibly be funny, but I'm waiting for the punch line." Mary Ann was on her feet. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I just thought you knew!" I could hear the distant sounds of a siren screeching its warning. This was wrong. It was a misunderstanding of some kind. "I just talked to Tolsky two weeks ago. " I enunciated the words carefully as if by doing so I could help Dena and Mary Ann realize their mistake." He said he couldn't wait to see my screenplay. He told me where he was going to film the movie. He told me where he was going to be next week. He told me which actors he was going to approach. Do you see where I'm heading with this? Tolsky was going to do a lot of stuff. He had plans. I may only have spoken to him a few times, but I know this was not a man who was planning on taking his own life." "Well, he may not have been planning it two weeks ago, but he sure as hell did it last night." Dena nodded to Mary Ann, and continued, "I saw an Examiner downstairs in the lobby, it's probably in there." Mary Ann tugged nervously on a chestnut-brown curl before hurrying out to retrieve the afternoon publication. "You weren't close to him, right?" Dena asked. "You just met him that one time?" "Yeah, just the one time he came up to talk to me about the possibility of turning Sex, Drugs and Murder into a movie. We talked about it on the phone a few times afterward. He seemed like a nice enough guy, maybe a little larger than life, but nothing that you wouldn't expect from a Hollywood producer?. Dena are you sure about this?" "Oh, I'm sure, and if you thought he was larger than life, then wait until you hear how he chose to orchestrate his exit." Mary Ann breezed in with the paper in hand. I'm in pretty good shape but it seems to me that after climbing three flights of stairs two times over she should be sweating, not glowing. I took the Examiner from her and read the head-line, "Michael Tolsky Commits Suicide, Death Imitates Art." I placed the paper against the unfinished wood of the dining table and sat down to read. "Right out of a movie?literally."Dena ruffled her own short dark hair and relaxed back into the cushions. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but what a frigging drama queen." I reread the description of his death. Tolsky had slit his wrists in a bathtub. The scene was right out of his film Silent Killer. He had even taken care to put vanilla-scented candles around the room, just as his character had done before his premature end. I tried to picture Tolsky lying naked in a pool of his own blood, his round rosy face devoid of animation. At our lunch meeting his presence had been so large that I had worried there wouldn't be enough room in the restaurant for the other patrons. How could things have changed that quickly? "Of all his films, why recreate that scene?" I used my finger to trace a circle around the paragraph describing the incident. "I don't get it. In Silent Killer, it wasn't even a real suicide. It was a murder made to look like a suicide. Have the police considered that this might not be what it seems?" "Read the whole article," Dena said."There was a note." MaryAnn nodded vigorously." Mmm-hmm, a suicide note." "Oh, good thing you clarified that onexa0— I'm sure Sophie thought I was talking about a piece of music." Continues... Excerpted from Sex, Murder And A Double Latte by Kyra Davis Copyright © 2005 by Kyra Davis. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more