One of Veronica’s - writer for hire - clients is killed. When a detective visits to interview her, she learns the man used an assumed name. Curious to know why he had her write love letters, and to whom, why he didn’t pay his bills and why he was killed, Veronica investigates.

In the mean time, Veronica has asked Ben, brother of her downstairs neighbour and a member of her writing group, to be her plus one to a party. They go out a few times to watch how couples behave, as input for figuring out how to behave as each other’s plus one. Apparently, while both of them have been married, they haven’t got a clue. o^O.

As a narrator Veronica is a bore. She wants to avoid clichés, but perhaps she should also consider not repeating the same information every time an opportunity to share comes up. Fair enough, I had at one point sort of forgotten what kind of deals she had set up with her various clients, but then, the dullness of the narrative had made me set aside the book for five days. I’m sure there is an optimum somewhere.

Also annoying: repeatedly it is mentioned the girlfriend found the body of the client and that this is thought of as suspicious. It isn’t. He was killed in her apartment. It would have been suspicious if she had not been to one to find him. “She was out of town for a week when her place was burgled and her boyfriend was killed? How convenient.” (Besides, it’s never the girlfriend - in cozies because it would be too obvious, in reality because women rarely kill their boyfriends.)

Anyway, I struggled through the story. Veronica’s snooping is mild. She learns most while working for her clients.

Two stars, because I don’t agree with Veronica’s assessment of how clever she was at figuring out who’d dunit.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.