Fashion Victim, but Make it Funny

What has JELL-O wrestling, purloined movie props, and "The Cat Who Saved a Toddler's Life"?  Why, Laura Levine's Murder Gets a Makeover, of course!  In this zaniest of Jaine Austen mysteries, Jaine reluctantly agrees to a makeover with a snarky LA stylist as a favor to her insufferable neighbor Lance.  Fashion maven Bebe Braddock is so condescending that she makes Anna Wintour look like Mrs. Claus.  So it's no surprise when she ends up strangled by a wire hanger (somewhere out there, Joan Crawford is cackling).  Unfortunately, Jaine is the prime suspect and goes into PI mode to clear her name.  But this time she isn't trying to catch just a killer.  She's also in hot pursuit of her beloved Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs tee shirt, which Bebe discarded during the ill-fated makeover. 

To crank up the crazy, Jaine's cat Prozac saves a boy from getting hit by a car, garnering her attention from the press and inflating her already huge feline ego.  Also, Bebe's fetus of an assistant is smitten with Jaine.  Unlike Bebe, he thinks her elastic waist pants are sexy and is only too happy to squire her around LA.  As if all of this isn't wacky enough, Levine sprinkles in emails from Jaine's parents, retirees who wreak havoc on their Florida retirement village (well, her dad wreaks havoc while her mother cringes).  The elder Austens are as delightful as they are eccentric, making it clear that the coconut doesn't fall far from the tree. 

Colorful characters, witty one-liners, and a self-deprecating heroine who is somehow as real as she is outrageous make Murder Gets a Makeover one wonderfully raucous ride.

No doubt about it, this caper is catnip to me.