Nursery Crimes

“Smart sleuthing…the way [Juliet] maintains her sense of humor while juggling detective chores and baby duty is awesome.”—The New York TimesA public defender turned Stay-at-home mom, Juliet Applebaum is bored with playdates and trips to the park—so near the end of her second pregnancy, she gets off the mommy track to track down a murderer…. Juliet isn’t too surprised when her feisty, tantrum-throwing two-year-old daughter doesn’t get into Hollywood’s premier preschool—but she’s shocked and suspicious when the school’s principal is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Against the advice of her screenwriter husband, and with her rambunctious toddler in tow, Juliet heads to the local playground to dig up some dirt on a disgruntled studio executive whose daughter wasn’t offered a place in the school. But she has some surprising new suspects to consider when her investigation takes her into a seedy on-line newsgroup—and the most dangerous parts of the human heart…. “[Juliet is] a lot like Elizabeth Peters’s warm and humorous Amelia Peabody—a brassy, funny, quick-witted protagonist.”—The Houston Chronicle