Deb on Air—Live at Five: A Debutante Detective Mystery

Dainty Prescott behaves as though she’s more concerned with one-upping her sister, Teensy, than solving a woman’s murder in Moore’s uneven third Debutante Detective mystery (after 2011’s Wanted Deb or Alive). Dainty, accompanied by her cross-dressing pygmy friend, Amanda Vásquez, returns home to Fort Worth, Tex., where she moves in with her challenging family and tries to reestablish her life, having been presumed dead after her misadventures in Mexico, chronicled in the previous series entry. As Dainty lackadaisically looks into the murder of the wife of her boss at WBFD-TV, Gordon Pfeiffer (who’s the main suspect), she also contends with unnerving threats from a stalker as well as the possibility of reuniting with her former lover, Jim Bruckman of the Fort Worth PD. The occasional amusing nugget of observation isn’t enough to sustain the incoherent narrative, as narcissistic Dainty hops from impulsive action to foolhardy shenanigan. (July)