Following a trip to visit her boyfriend Robert, Claire attends a party held by an old college friend from Duke. She tries to avoid Willard, but talks to Blanche, her sister Sarah, and their cousin Marshall. The evening is pleasant until both sisters begin to squabble over Anthony Sciorra, who adores Blanche. She is aware that Sarah is crazy about him, but she continues to flirt with him to cause trouble, and her sister’s pleas to stop toying with him fall on deaf ears.

Claire is taken aback when she returns home that evening to find a letter from Meredith Lawrence, the daughter of a college acquaintance. Meredith is a thirteen-year-old prodigy with a will of steel who has decided that she and Claire are going to be good friends. She writes Claire that she can help her in her profession because she is something of an armchair detective. She quotes Goethe by saying she will “Seize the day!” by arriving the tomorrow for an extended visit.

After Claire talks to Meredith’s father and he explains his wife is under extreme stress, Meredith becomes her houseguest. Claire is entertained by the girl’s boundless energy and flattered by her friendship. When the police call to inform Claire that Blanche has been murdered and ask her to come down to the station, she takes Meredith with her. From Wallace Jackson, the detective heading the case, she learns that Blanche had been murdered sometime during the evening of the party after eating a poisoned apple -- a story line reminiscent of Snow White.

Meredith is fascinated by the murder and determined to play detective. Her goal is made easier when Claire’s publisher asks her to finish Blanche’s latest manuscript, a non-fiction book about the Ku Klux Klan and a departure from her usual mysteries. Working on the manuscript gives Claire and Meredith access to Blanche’s personal life, and when a second murder occurs, Meredith strives harder to solve the case.

Too many things in this book do not work, including an overabundance of minutia, a dragging plot, a number of unlikely flat characters and stilted conversations full of cliches. As unbelievable characters go, Meredith tops the list by acting much younger than her age, while at the same time acting more like a know-it-all middle-aged adult manipulating the grown-ups and making them look stupid.

Surprisingly, Claire is quite fond of her and feels “as though she (Meredith) had left some of her incessant energy and movement behind, to be absorbed by Claire through the air.” There are the two improbable men in Claire’s life, including the attractive and meticulous Englishman, Robert, who appears lackluster and infrequently, and the shaggy, gray haired, world-weary Detective Jackson, who causes Claire to feel an instantaneous “frisson” of attraction.

I hope that Ms. Buggé will spend some time with an actual thirteen-year-old female prodigy before she writes her next book.

--Monica Pope