How did the local beauty end up in actor Matt Logan's dressing room closet, strangled with his tie and dressed for the shower scene? She'd blackmailed him and sold his secret letters to his beloved daughter (whom he calls Mouse). The letters turned up on the front page of a tabloid the next week, but would the ex-movie idol have stuffed the body in his own closet? Or, could it have been the director, whom she'd blackmailed into giving her a part in his low-budget horror flick? Or maybe it was the camera operator, whose newest love fell victim to her wiles? What about Matt's ex-wife, petite swimsuit model Anastasia Russo? If these people only knew what the victim knew ...

Matt Logan is a has-been in the movie industry. His face still shows scars from the drunk-driving accident that broke up his marriage. His fans, if he has any left, must look for him in low-budget horror films, playing sleazy character roles. His wife has divorced him; his beloved daughter, Michaella (whom he calls “Mouse”), is cut off from him by a court order forbidding him to make contact with her. In the face of it all, Logan deals with his demons with ironic humor and blunt stubbornness. This novel is his journal, written in the form of letters to the child he has lost.

On location in the Carolina Appalachians, in a production good enough to save his career, and a budget low enough to have hired him, Logan repels a blackmail attempt by the beautiful and ambitious Crystal Beller. Too late, he learns that Crystal is a member of a local crime family. She powers her way into a job on the set, doubling the star in the shower scene.

Logan has other worries: his ex-wife Nancy, just married to her divorce lawyer, wants him to sign an adoption realease so that her husband can adopt Michaella. An established Star visits the set, a potential replacement for Logan. Halla McKee, the actress playing the bitch in the movie, turns down Matt's romantic overtures. And Crystal Beller turns up dead in his dressing room closet, naked and strangled with his tie.

Kaufman gives this character a voice of ruthless honesty and a true actor’s sense of playfulness. Logan describes his fist: “It’s a big fist, scarred, with one bone that never healed straight after three resettings. Pike should have been impressed, except he knew that the only fights I’ve ever won were choreographed.”

The plot is character-driven. Although the killer’s identity may not come as a great surprise, the killer’s motive is a forehead-slapper. Kaufman plays fair throughout. Every clue is available, hidden in plain sight, obscured with some masterful red herrings. At one point early on, the killer is identified, the motive is propounded, and nobody recognizes the solution.

The dialogue is swift and fresh. Using rhythm, word choice and syntax rather than phonetic respellings, Kaufman gives each character a unique voice. Local characters’ dialects vary according to their education and backgrounds. Transplants like Logan and other members of the movie colony speak in voices reflecting a variety of backgrounds; the producer is not American, but has mastered the language with a few oddities; Logan, the son of a State Department official, colors his English with some Britishisms; Halla, transplanted from up North, has absorbed local expressions; Matt’s lawyer, an Ivy-League graduate, retains her mountain phrasing.

Perhaps Kaufman’s strongest ally is respect and liking for the characters who people this novel. Logan makes no secret of his flaws, which hide a core of unsuspected strength. Michaella is the prize that Logan and his ex-wife (and her husband) fight over, but the child flatly rejects the role of helpless pawn. Halla guards her independence so fiercely that her own fears ambush her. These people tend to stay with us, long after we have read the last letter to Mouse.

"If you're looking for a fresh voice in the wonderful world of cozy mysteries, look no further. Schuyler kaufman is edgy, fast-paced, witty, and believable. [The] suspenseful plot, palpable settings, genuine characters, and high velocity dialogue will keep you turning page after page to the end. Then, if you're like me, you'll ask, 'Where's the next one?'"
-- Patrick Bone, Award-winning author of MELUNGEON WINTER

"Kaufman writes with the grace of poetry and the emotional impact of a movie"
-- Scott Nicholson, L. Ron Hubbard Award-winning author of THANK YOU FOR THE FLOWERS

"Kaufman has taken a moving family story and hard-boiled it. A refreshing twist on the two-fisted mystery genre"
-- Ellen Kennedy, author of IRREGARDLESS OF MURDER

"I will want to read it again, fully expecting to get more out of it the next time ... [the] publisher, although new among the small presses, puts out a nice, professional looking book with clean copy and the appearance of having been well edited."
-- Eugene Stratton [on the DorothyL list]