Bargains! PROMOTIONS
Margaret Dumas holds a Master's Degree in English Literature, which led her unsuspectingly into a career as a technical writer and computer software executive. Her first novel, Speak Now, was short-listed for the 2003 CWA Debut Dagger award. Dumas lives in the Bay Area, where she splits her time between working on her next novel and searching for the perfect cocktail.
A charming setting, not-so-serious tension and a cozy clique of appealing characters lift Dumas's second mystery starring heiress Charley Fairfax, who heads a nonprofit San Francisco theater company. Charley's plans for the honeymoon with husband Jack that was interrupted in her first outing, Speak Now (2004), get put on hold when distraught CEO Morgan Stokes seeks Jack's computer security expertise to reveal a corporate saboteur. Stokes's fianci's late-night death in a health club steam room, deemed accidental at first indicates foul play as well. Charley and Jack enlist her theater pals and his computer geek partner to infiltrate the high-tech company as fake consultants. Properly costumed and coiffed, Charley rehearses corporate nonspeak and laments having to rise early like her working-stiff cohorts. Meanwhile, the motley group rehashes their findings almost nightly, while consuming a variety of tempting comestibles and plenty of creative cocktails. This fun romp covers it all -- car chases, shootings, eccentric-uncles-turned-amateur-playwrights and end-of-the-world computer viruses. (May) --Publishers Weekly
