Death in Daytime-Eileen Davidson

Death in Daytime
Eileen Davidson
Obsidian, Oct 2008, $6.99
ISBN: 9780451225641

She has worked on the daytime soap opera The Young Tide for over twenty years until recently it feels like a second home. The show acquired new head writer Marcy Blanchard who hates star Alexis Peterson for stealing her boyfriend two decades ago. She believes if Alexis didn’t go out with her lover, he would have married her and they would have raised kids together. Instead she is totally alone living miserably but with plans to make Alexis’ life even more miserable than hers.

When Marcy forgets to give Alexis her script, the actress decides enough and plans to have it out with her. When she enters the writer’s office, she finds Marcy on the floor with her head bashed in. Alexis is the prime suspect because they had public fights witnessed by the TV crew and their history together. Unwilling to sit idly by, Alexis investigates and learns Marcy had a husband she divorced and a teen daughter. When Marcie’s ex is murdered, someone cleverly designs the crime scene to make it look as if Alexis killed him. Alexis goes full speed to uncover the real culprit before she needs bail.

Readers get treated to the inside scoop of what happens at a popular soap opera off screen as Eileen Davidson uses her experiences on the Young and the Restless and the Bold and the Beautiful to create the background to this exciting, heady and enthralling mystery. The investigation is cleverly handled even if a frantic drama queen like Alexis probably should have hired a pro private investigator. Still with great characters, a fun look at soaping and an engaging whodunit, fans beyond the soaps will enjoy this fine amateur sleuth tale.

Harriet Klausner