Almost True Confessions: Closet Sleuth Spills All

by Jane O'Connor

Overview

This comic mystery set in the elite zip codes of Manhattan will leave you breathless . . . literally

What could be more fun for a freelance copy editor than work- ing on a juicy tell-all about one of Manhattan's most enigmatic society doyennes? But when Miranda "Rannie" Bookman arrives at Ret Sullivan's tony Upper East Side apartment, she finds more than the final draft of the reclusive author's manuscript waiting for her—there's also the half-naked body of Ret herself, tied to her bed and strangled with an Hermès scarf.

Was this merely a case, as the police believe, of rough sex that got a little too rough? Or was Ret murdered because someone wanted to make absolutely sure she didn't meet her deadline? Once again, Rannie must prove that her mind is just as sharp as her Col-Erase blue pencils—or risk getting rubbed out too.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062236487
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Series:	Closet Sleuth , #2
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	377,207
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jane O'Connor is the author of more than thirty books for children, including Nina, Nina Ballerina, illustrated by DyAnne DiSalvo, and the Fancy Nancy picture book series. Ms. O'Connor lives with her family in ever-posh New York City.

Desde la publicacion de Nancy la Elegante, el closet de Jane O’Connor cuenta con tantas boas, coronas y atuendos brillantes que a veces sus amigas no la reconocen por la calle. Aun reside (esa es una palabra elegante para decir que vive) en la ciudad de Nueva York con su familia y su companero canino, Arrow.

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2013
Miranda "Rannie" Bookman agrees to copyedit a hush-hush book that threatens to be a gossipy tell-all about a prominent New York City society centenarian. Suddenly, other people attached to the project are dying, and Rannie speculates that the book is the motivation. Perhaps her teen kids and her ex-cop lover complicate Rannie's amateur sleuthing, but they inadvertently give her the avenues to snoop more efficiently. The trouble is, Rannie's hunches ("justifiable paranoia") are correct, and now she's the killer's next target. VERDICT Working upstream from her phenomenally popular "Fancy Nancy" children's series, O'Connor proves how well she can write snappy and comic adult fiction. Share with readers who relish Elinor Lipman's or Jeanne Ray's style of humor and female leads. This is the second case for the Manhattan-based copy editor sleuth (Dangerous Admissions), whose prowess with grammar holds her in good stead.

Library Journal

In Almost True Confessions, the second installment of Rannie's accidental adventures in sleuthing, both author and gumshoe grammarian sharpen their craft, venturing out of the Gossip Girl world of elite Manhattan academies and into the Page Six sphere of the larger cityscape…As you read O'Connor's brisk and racy tale, daydreaming of sexy cops, smooth-talking assassins and lurid crime scenes, you may find yourself slavering for crackers and cocktails. You might as well give in to the urge: like Dorothy Sayers's Hangman's Holiday, O'Connor's suspenseful sequel shows that foul play and festivity make grand partners in crime.

The New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger

O’Connor’s droll second romantic suspenser featuring incorrigibly curious Manhattan copy editor Miranda “Rannie” Bookman (after 2007’s Dangerous Admissions) finds the divorced mother of two barely scraping by on freelance assignments from friends and former colleagues like Ellen Donahoe and handouts from loaded ex-mother-in-law Mary Lorimar. Which helps explain Rannie’s excitement when Ellen hires her to handle the new top-secret tell-all on sainted society grande dame Charlotte Cummings by notorious celebrity skewerer Ret Sullivan—that is, until Rannie goes to pick up the manuscript and finds Ret’s body. A second murder puts Rannie on the sleuthing trail in earnest. As Rannie’s increasingly dangerous digging takes her from Cummings’s Palladian-style manse to a gala at the Metropolitan Museum, O’Connor serves up plenty of glitz and tangy social satire. The actual multiple murder mystery, however, never rises above the level of a last-suspect-standing TV movie. Agent: Doug Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A freelancer’s life may be difficult, but O’Connor makes it delectably death defying.

New York Times Book Review

2013-08-15
An elusive writer is murdered in spite of the tameness of her latest tell-all. Although Miranda "Rannie" Bookman has been carefully instructed by her former police officer boyfriend, Tim Butler, that she's absolutely not allowed to get involved in any more trouble, it's difficult to keep to the straight and narrow now that Simon & Schuster has given her more free time by letting her go. When senior editor Ellen Donahoe offers Rannie some freelance work copy editing a top-secret new release and Rannie signs the appropriate disclosure agreement, she's thrilled to find out the gig is editing Ret Sullivan's latest. Ret is known for digging the dirt on celebrities; that's what got her in trouble years before, when she uncovered a particularly juicy tidbit about a star who got revenge in a personal way. Rannie expects Ret's book to be an exposé, especially because it's about wealthy, little-known Charlotte Cummings. But the biography is definitely more tame than Ret's other work. When Rannie shows up at Ret's and finds the reclusive writer tied to the bed and strangled, she's all the more shocked since she knows that Charlotte's family would have no reason to exact revenge on Ret. Rannie feels an obligation to understand what happened to Ret, and she suspects it's related to a mysterious dedication in Ret's latest work: to "Audeo." If only Rannie can figure out Audeo's identity, she may have the key to the murder. O'Connor (Dangerous Admissions, 2007) definitely has an insider's view of the publishing world, though she doesn't make the romantic aspects of Rannie's life nearly as interesting.

Kirkus Reviews