Claire Malloy loves her life. But how did it go by so fast? A bookstore owner, part-time sleuth, and full-time single mother, Claire is about to turn the big four-oh! Good thing her teenage daughter, Caron, has just been recruited by the Kappa Theta Eta girls--whose sorority house is next door to the Malloys'--to be a consultant for the cosmetics empire My Beautiful Self, Inc. At the very least, Claire can get a little help with those fine lines around her eyes�but at what cost? Turns out there's a high price to pay to look one's best. After a series of dangerous and suspicious incidents, including a hit-and-run "accident" that kills a sorority sister, it becomes clear to Claire that the beauty business in Farberville, Arkansas, is getting pretty ugly--and with every new makeover another dark circle rises from beneath the surface�. From Publishers Weekly Claire Molloy's daughter befriends a less than desirable crowd of sorority sisters. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Adventure #8 for Farberville's bookstore owner Claire Malloy (Death by the Light of the Moon, etc.), widowed mother of teenager- from-hell Caron and sometime lover of police lieutenant Peter Rosen. Claire lives next door to this college town's Kappa Theta Eta sorority house, only sparsely occupied in the summer. Here, Claire--nosier than ever--gets involved in a series of incidents there--from screams in the night to prowlers and unexplained lights, culminating in the death of much admired senior Jean Hall, apparently run down by vanished Debbie Anne Wray, a wimpy pledge. Claire's persistence, not to say chutzpah, gradually uncovers connections to Law School Dean John Vanderson, his sleekly efficient wife Eleanor, the local hot-sheets motel, and a range of house activities undreamed of by the sorority's rules committee. Claire grows less appealing and amusing as her foibles are archly exaggerated; the plotting is also sometimes murky and unconvincing. Amiable but often dull fare. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
