But the reunion weekend's first mystery crops up when Claire and Dante check in at Ye Olde Pioneer Village. Someone has left Claire a little heart-shaped box with a picture of her teenage self inside. And the first few drinks of the reunion icebreaker party have barely been downed when Cindy Sanchez, former head cheerleader and Minor High good-time girl, is found strangled in the parking lot, with another heart-shaped box in her hand.
As usual when she's faced with a puzzle, Claire's brain goes into overdrive. The chief of police (another old classmate) arrests a hotel employee who's found with Cindy's ATM card. Suspicion also falls on Claire's old friend Logan West, who's spent most of the intervening years in a mental hospital. But Claire doesn't think either man is guilty. Plenty of men might have found an excuse to slip out for a few minutes of auld lang syne with Cindy: Wade, her ex-boyfriend from senior year; Jim, Claire's own high-school flame; Richard, the class geek, now a high-tech millionaire; even Cindy's jealous, possibly estranged husband, Kevin. But none of them will admit to it. As the now-subdued weekend continues, Claire tries to narrow down her short list of could-have-done-its, knowing that she and the five other remaining women who received boxes may be in the killer's sights.
Though the clues--both real and false--are numerous and contradictory enough to seem a bit confusing, the murderer may not come as a big surprise to anyone who's read a few mysteries. Yet Heart-Shaped Box goes down as smoothly as chocolate. Just as Claire, with her kind heart, her little insecurities, and her one-glance perceptiveness and humor, appears to be gaining confidence and relaxing into her tentative relationship with Dante, so April Henry is relaxing into this ever-more-appealing series. --Barrie Trinkle