Marriage Can Be Murder is the second book in the romantic cozy mystery series, Love Can Be Murder. These books are a spin-off from the characters in my six-book (and counting) series on the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, set around a family-run detective agency in Palo Alto. The Love Can Be Murder books are more cozy and romantic than the main series, with a little less murder and a little more amour. This is a series for fans of Dashiell Hammet’s Nick and Nora Charles, or His Girl Friday or Moonlighting for an eighties variation.
It’s not necessary to have read the earlier books. Check out the first chapter below to get a sense of whether this will be the next mystery you cozy up with.
Someone is trying to kill Delores De La Vega, an aging but legendary movie star known as much for her looks and numerous marriages as her acting ability. Now an animal activist and fabulously wealthy, she’s about to change her will in favor of the daughter she gave up at birth for adoption, making a claim on her biological mother’s billions. With a woman as dramatic as Delores De La Vega, it’s all or nothing, so she’s planning to write out everyone else previously in the will. But can she live long enough to make the changes? And just who is trying to kill her? Is it one or all of her many exes set to be cut out of millions? Or the onsite vet who might be more than a friend? Or is it one of the dozens of staff members, also being rejected in favor of the newly discovered daughter? Lee and Gurn, the Nick and Nora Charles of Silicon Valley, find no lack of suspects when death stalks a Portola Valley animal sanctuary.