Heart-Shaped Box (A Claire Montrose Mystery)

"YOU ARE INVITED TO THE MINOR HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1979 REUNION... BE THERE OR BE SQUARE." When Claire Montrose first reads the invitation, she reacts with a grimace (who wouldn't?). But while some things have changed since 1979, Claire, the curious, self-conscious heroine of April Henry's previous Circles of Confusion and Square in the Face, is still tall, thin, smart, and young-looking for her years. Deciding to flaunt the traits that kept her low on the high school social pecking order 20 years ago--and also show off her gorgeous Manhattan art curator boyfriend, Dante--Claire sends in her acceptance.

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