Laura Levine - The PMS Murder: A Jaine Austen Mystery

Outstanding praise for Laura Levine and her Jaine Austen mysteries! SHOES TO DIE FOR
Laura Levines acerbic comedy-writing skills give a cutting edge to her series. The New York Times Book Review You will love it ...Levine is a funny lady.
The Kingston Observer

A lively sense of humor and an ear for the absurd help Jaine overcome any number of setbacks and a host of fashion no-nos. Kirkus Reviews

The ideal beach read. Publishers Weekly
KILLER BLONDE
An entertaining read that will leave series followers wanting more. Myster y News
Levines writing is so engaging... her heroine so witty... what also works and works best is Levines humor. The Alameda Times-Star (Alameda, California) LAST WRITES
Last Writes is spritely and entertaining. I commend it to the attention of anyone wishing to be entertained. Robert B. Parker, New York Times bestselling author The wisecracks and puns again fly fast and thick. Publishers Weekly
THIS PEN FOR HIRE
Jaine has a sassy attitude and I look forward to her new adventures. Deadly Pleasures

This Pen for Hire is as much about Jaine herself as about the mystery. Fans of Janet Evanovichs Stephanie Plum series will want to check her out. The Myster y Reader

A fluffy, fun, and fast read. Librar y Journal
Heres the book you should have to slip into the beach tote and peruse while prone beneath a striped umbrella. Myster y Review Books by Laura Levine

THIS PEN FOR HIRE LAST WRITES KILLER BLONDE

SHOES TO DIE FOR THE PMS MURDERDEATH BY PANTYHOSE Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation KENSINGTON BOOKS http://www.kensingtonbooks.com For Michael, Barbara, Josh, and Ben Acknowledgments

Many thanks, as always, to my editor John Scognamiglio and my agent Evan Marshall for their invaluable guidance and support. Thanks also to Joanne Fluke for her many acts of kindness and generosity, and to my friends and family for putting up with me while Im writing. Thanks to Hiro Kimura for his snazzy cover, and to my feline technical advisor, my cat, Mr. Guy. (If I dont mention him somewhere in the acknowledgments, hes impossible to live with.) A special thanks to the readers who have taken the time to write me and visit me at my book signings. And finallyfor loyalty and devotion above and beyond the call of dutythanks to my number one fan and best friend, my husband, Mark.

Jose Cuervo. But I never dreamed it would be this bad. W
hats more painful than a mammogram? More excruciating than a bikini wax? More humiliating than spinach stuck to your front tooth?

Shopping for a bathing suit, of course. Theres nothing worse. Not even a root canal. (Unless its a root canal in a bathing suit with spinach stuck to your front tooth.)
Thats what I was doing the day I first became involved in what eventually became known as the PMS Murder: trying on a bathing suit. For some ridiculous reason Id decided to take up water aerobics. Actually, for two ridiculous reasons: my thighs. Before my horrified eyes, they were rapidly turning into Ramada Inns for cellulite.
So I figured Id join a gym, and after a few weeks of sloshing around in the pool, Id have the toned and silky thighs of my dreams. But before I could get toned and silky, there was just one tiny obstacle in my way: I needed to buy the aforementioned bathing suit.
I knew it would be bad. The last time Id gone bathing suit shopping, I came home and spent the night crying on the shoulders of my good buddy

For starters, I made the mistake of going to a discount clothing store called the Bargain Barn. My checkbook was going through a particularly anemic phase at the time, and Id heard about what great prices this place had.

What I hadnt heard, however, was that there were no private dressing rooms at the Bargain Barn. Thats right. Everyone, I saw to my dismay, had to change in one ghastly mirror-lined communal dressing room, under the pitiless glare of fluorescent lights, where every cellulite bump looked like a crater in the Grand Canyon.

Its bad enough having to look at your body flaws in a private dressing room, but to have them exposed in a roomful of other womenI still shudder at the memory.

Making matters worse was the fact that I was surrounded by skinny young things easing their washboard tummies into size twos and fours. I once read that sixty percent of American women are a size twelve or larger. Those sixty percent obviously didnt shop at the Bargain Barn. But I shouldnt have been surprised. After all, this was L.A., the liposuction capital of the world, where its practically against the law to wear a size twelve or larger.

I grabbed a handful of bathing suits, ignoring the bikinis and mini-thongs in favor of the more matronly models with built-in bras and enough industrialstrength spandex to rein in a herd of cattle.

I jammed my body into one hideous swimsuit after another, wondering what had ever possessed me to come up with this insane water aerobics idea. I tried on striped suits and florals; tankinis and skirtinis; blousons and sarongs. No matter what the style, the end result was always the same: I looked like crap.

One suit promised it would take inches of ugly flab from my waist. And indeed it did. Trouble was, it shoved that ugly flab right down to my hips, which had all the flab they needed, thank you very much.

Id just tried on the last of the bathing suits, a striped tankini that made me look like a pregnant convict, when suddenly I heard someone moaning in dismay.

I looked over and saw a plump thirtysomething woman struggling into a pair of spandex bike shorts and matching halter top. At last. Someone with actual hips and thighs and tummy. One of the sixty percenters!

She surveyed herself in the mirror and sighed, her cheeks flushed from the exertion of tugging on all that spandex.

My God, she sighed. I look like the Pillsbury

Doughboy with cleavage.
Tell me about it, I said. I look like the dough
boy with cleavage, retaining water.
Oh, yeah? she countered. I look like the
doughboy with cleavage, retaining water on a bad
hair day.
She ran her fingers through her blunt-cut hair
and grimaced.
Would you believe this is a size large? she said,
tugging at the shorts. Who is this large on? Barbie?
Well, Ive had it. I wriggled out of the tankini
and started to get dressed. Im outta here. Id long since given up my insane water aerobics
idea. No. Id take up something far less humiliating. Like walking. And the first place I intended to walk to was Ben & Jerrys for a restorative dose of
Chunky Monkey.
Im going to drown my sorrows in ice cream. Great idea, said my fellow sufferer. Mind if I
join you?
Be my guest.
And so, ten minutes later, we were sitting across
from each other at Ben & Jerrys slurping Chunky
Monkey ice cream cones.
Im Pam, by the way, my companion said, licking some ice cream from where it had dribbled
onto her wrist. Pam Kenton.
It was nice being with someone who ate with
gusto. My best friend Kandi has the appetite of a
gnat and usually shoots me disapproving looks
when I order anything more fattening than a celery stick. I know its only because she cares about
me and wants me to be one of the skinny forty percenters, but still, it can get pretty annoying. Actually, Pam said, my last name isnt really
Kenton. Its Koskovolis. Kenton is my stage name.
Im an actress. Of course, you know what that
means in this town.
Waitress?
You got it, she nodded. And you?
Im a writer.
Really? Her eyes widened, impressed. People
are always impressed when I tell them Im a writer.
What do you write?
Oh, industrial brochures. Resumes. Stuff like
that.
Heres where they usually stop being impressed.
Most folks find resumes and industrial brochures a
bit of a yawn.
But Pam sat up, interested.

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