Bless Your Heart

A Cinderella Story screenwriter Dunlap debuts with a dishy tale of death and betrayal in the Deep South. In the wealthy Atlanta suburb of Buckhead, Ga., wolfishly charming youth baseball coach and financial adviser Anderson Tupper is found beaten to death in a dugout. Homicide detective LaShay Claypool takes the case, but her efforts are immediately stonewalled by the “Buckhead Betties”: cutthroat baseball moms who seem intent on scrambling the detective’s signals. Among them are lawyer Venita Wiley, femme fatale Sutton Chambers, and YA author Kira Brooks. Gradually, Claypool peels back Buckhead’s many layers, revealing that Anderson mismanaged both his own fortune and the assets of others before his death, that each member of his team had a complicated home life, and that tragedy lies just beneath the surface of the most fearsome Betties’ glittering lives. Dunlap’s gleefully exaggerated characters are a little bit Desperate Housewives, a little bit Jacqueline Susann, and the delicious whiff of camp carries Claypool’s investigation through to its truly surprising conclusion. This is a hoot. Agent: Lesley Sabga, Seymour Agency. (Aug.)