Literature / Jaine Austen Mysteries

Jaine Austen (no, not that Jane) is just one of many women trying to eke out a living in Los Angeles. She works as a freelance writer-for-hire, offering her pen to anyone in need of a resume, personal ad, or even confessions of love. Sure, she may not have the dream job she wants, her cat Prozac may be a nuisance, and her own love life may be on the fritz, but at least she still has a life.

That's more than can be said for the poor souls who wind up murdered: from a Thigh Master-beaten aerobics instructor to an actor taken out by a deadly donut to a Martha Stewart wannabe that gets electrocuted by her own hair dryer and many more, Jaine develops a side gig as an amateur slueth. Combined with her writerly knowledge, Jaine just might be able to solve these mysteries and get her life back on track.

The Jaine Austen Mysteries is a cozy mystery series by Laura Levine.^note (No relation to the multi-disciplinary visual artist of the same name.) The series debut in 2002 with new entries being published at least once per year.

The series includes the following titles:

• #01: This Pen for Hire (2002)
• #02: Last Writes (2003)
• #03: Killer Blonde (2004)
• #04: Shoes to Die For (2005)
• #05: The PMS Murder (2006)
• #06: Death by Pantyhose (2007)
• #06.5: "The Dangers of Candy Canes" (2007)^note Collected in Joanne Fluke's Candy Cane Murder anthology.
• #07: Killing Bridezilla (2008)
• #08: Killer Cruise (2009)
• #09: Death of a Trophy Wife (2010)
• #09.5: "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies" (2010)^note Collected in Joanne Fluke's Gingerbread Cookie Murder anthology.
• #10: Pampered to Death (2011)
• #11: Death of A Neighborhood Witch (2012)
• #11.5: "Nightmare on Elf Street" (2013)^note Collected in Fern Michaels' Secret Santa anthology; reissued in Joanne Fluke's 2019 Christmas Sweets anthology.
• #12: Killing Cupid (2013)
• #13: Death by Tiara (2015)
• #14: Murder Has Nine Lives (2016)
• #15: Death of a Bachelorette (2017)
• #16: Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge (2018)
• #17: Death of a Gigolo (2019)
• #18: Murder Gets a Makeover (2021)
• #19: Death by Smoothie (2022)
• #20: Murder Buys a One-Way Ticket (announced for June 2024)

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This series provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Walter Barnhardt in Killing Bridezilla, and Vladimir Ivan Trotsky in Death of a Trophy Wife, just to name a couple. Jaine says she has a habit of attracting life's weirdos.
• Accidental Hero: Prozac gains media attention in Murder Gets a Makeover when she saves a toddler from being hit by a car while trying to eat the kid's Chicken McNugget. When at an award ceremony for a pet charity, she sees the same kid eating another McNugget and reveals what the whole thing was really about... and then she ends up saving a philanthropist from choking on his food, doing this trope again.
• Accidental Murder:
  • In Last Writes, Quinn Kirkland accidentally killed Jessica Dumont by putting a snake in her glovebox, giving her a heart attack.
  • In Killing Cupid it's shown that Joy Amoroso accidentally killed Skip Holmeier's cat Miss Marple by feeding her chocolate, which is what drove Skip to kill her.
• Affably Evil: Wells Dumont from Last Writes. He killed Quinn to avenge his wife, (who Quinn killed by accident), leaves a confession in a suicide note to get Stan out of jail (he confessed to the murder because he believed his wife Audrey did it), and saved Jaine's life when she tried to stop his suicide attempt on the studio's roller coaster.^note Jaine thought Wells was going to jump from the top of the roller coaster once the cart reached it. She didn't find out until she was up there that Wells had cut a brake to send the cart flying off, so Wells helped her reach the sidings to hold onto until the rescue squad arrived.
• Age-Gap Romance: In Death by Smoothie, Preston Chambers is revealed to have a wife that Jaine easily mistakes for his daughter. Him cheating on said wife with Misty provides him with a motive to kill the latter. In the end, he ends up divorcing his wife and starts dating the more age appropriate Delia Delacroix.
• The Alleged Car: When Jaine's car is stolen in Death by Pantyhose, she rents a couple of different clunkers from "Crazy Dave's Rent-A-Wreck". Suffice it to say, they aren't very good cars.
• All for Nothing:
  • This is the case for Dickie Potter's plan to divorce Patti Devane and get a wealthy settlement and Conrad Devane's murder plot to kill her, both from Killing Bridezilla. For Conrad, it's because unbeknownst to him, Dickie and Patti had already married in Vegas before the events of the book, so her money would go to Dickie, not revert back to her Mother Daphna, and by extension, him. For Dickie, it fails... because Patti had frittered most of her money away in bad businesses. When Veronica finds this out, she drops Dickie like a hot stone.
  • Also the case for Death by Smoothie: Corky MacLaine murdered Misty in order to stop her blackmailing him and keeping her from squealing about how his red hair is a wig, and he is actually bald. Everyone on the show already figured that out by the first day they saw him.
• Asshole Victim: It's a murder mystery series. What else would you expect?
  • Stacy Lawrence from This Pen for Hire was a manipulative Alpha Bitch.
  • Quinn Kirkland, the heartbreaking jerk from Last Writes. Not only was he cheating on multiple women (one of which is likely underage), but a careless prank of putting a snake in a glovebox while working as a valet got Wells Dumont's wife killed, which inspired Wells to kill Quinn.
  • SueEllen Kingsley from Killer Blonde. An abusive Rich Bitch who treated her stepdaughter like trash.
  • Frenchie, AKA Giselle Ambrose from Shoes to Die For. A home-wrecker, a greedy bitch, and an extortionist.
  • Marybeth Olsen from The PMS Murder. She screwed over her "friend" Colin by not making him a partner in her company, caused the accident that slowly killed Doris' husband, was sleeping with Rochelle's husband and actually had the gall to offer to give Ashley Morgan a loan at "1% less than a bank rate."
  • Vic Cleveland from Death by Pantyhose, a comedian who steals jokes, cheats on his lovers left and right, and a blackmailer. There's just so much of the man to hate.
  • Garth Janken, Amoral Attorney and blackmailer from "The Danger of Candy Canes".
  • Patti Devane and Julio from Killing Bridezilla. The former for being a Spoiled Brat and Alpha Bitch, the latter for covering the killer's ass.
  • Graham Palmer III from Killer Cruise a shallow Gold Digger who went through women like tissues.
  • Bunny Cooper from Death of a Trophy Wife was a gold digging bitch who treated everyone around her horribly.
  • Mallory Francis from Pampered to Death, a horrifically stuck-up and entitled bitch.
  • Dr. Preston McCay from "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". A womanizing and possibly racist jerk.
  • Cryptessa Muldoon, AKA Eleanor Jenkins, from Death of a Neighborhood Witch was a miserable and bitter old crone who treated her neighbors like less than dirt.
  • Scotty, the definitive Jerkass Mall Santa from "Nightmare on Elf Street".
  • Joy Amoroso from Killing Cupid was a swindler and a control freak.
  • Dean Oliver from Murder Has Nine Lives, a sleazy Con Man who stole his great invention of Skinny Kitty along with others from hapless inventors and was cheating on his wife with women left right and center.
  • Hope Harper from Death of a Bachelorette, a conniving Alpha Bitch.
  • Scotty Parker from Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, a bitter, petty, and misanthropic has-been child actor, with a fist tighter than Ebenezer's.
  • Tommy LaSalle from Death of a Gigolo, a blackmailing, gold digging, and abusive Slimeball.
    • From the same book, Emma says the real Daisy Kincaid was "a sour old fossil" who treated her like dirt, but we only have her word to go on.
  • Bebe Braddock from Murder Gets a Makeover, a cruel and backstabbing makeover guru.
  • Misty Baines from Death by Smoothie, a vapid and airheaded man-stealer and blackmailer.
  • Really, the only one of the victims to not be a prick in some way is Amy Leighton from Death by Tiara, whose only crime was wanting to report her boss Candace for taking bribes.
• Ate His Gun: In Pampered to Death, it's revealed that Mallory Francis had forced an assistant director named Pablo Sandoval to go get mangos for her on one of her shoots during a hurricane, resulting in his crashing his car and being confined to a wheelchair from the injuries, leading to his ultimately committing suicide via this method.
• Attack on the Heart: If someone is stabbed in these books, expect it to be right in the ticker. There are exceptions, like Frenchie from Shoes to Die For, who was stabbed in the neck.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Misty Baines in Death by Smoothie can not act to save her life.
• Beauty Contest: Death by Tiara centers around Jaine getting work from a client to write lyrics for her daughter, to perform an original song for the pageant she is entering in.
• Beneath Suspicion:
  • Invoked by Hank in Death by Pantyhose, who seems like a lovelorn geek afraid of his own shadow.
  • In Pampered to Death, Cathy seems like a complete ditz, going off on wild theories as to who the killer is. Jaine doesn't suspect her until the end of the book.
  • This ends up the case with Daisy Kincaid/ Emma Shimmel from Death of a Gigolo.
• Better Manhandle the Murder Weapon: In Murder Gets a Makeover, Jaine finds Bebe Braddock dead with a wire hanger wrapped around her neck. Thinking she might still be alive due to hearing a noise (which turns out to be a cricket). Jaine unwraps the hanger from around her neck, thus getting her fingerprints all over it.
• Big Eater: Jaine is one, much to her own chagrin. Prozac also eats a lot.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A number of the killers appear to be nice guys or girls at first, but are exposed as villains by the end. They include:
  • Cameron Bannick from This Pen for Hire.
  • Hank from Death by Pantyhose.
  • Emily Pritchard from Killer Cruise.
  • Peter Connor from Death of a Neighborhood Witch.
  • Daisy Kincaid, AKA, Emma Shimmel from Death of a Gigolo.
  • Justin from Murder Gets a Makeover.
• Blackmail: A whole lot of it going around. In some cases, it's easier to count the murder victims who aren't blackmailing someone.
  • In Killer Cruise, one of the ship's stewards, Samoa, discovers Prozac is in Jaine's cabin, and agrees to only keep quiet if Jaine edits his manuscript.
    • In the same book, the ship's ice sculptor Anton Devereaux, who has been creeping on Jaine the whole book, manages to discover Prozac being on board as well, and tries to use it to sleep with Jaine. Luckily, Jaine managed to get out of it by blackmailing him about having been the "Butterfly Bandit" (which the victim had also been blackmailing him over).
  • In Killing Cupid, it's revealed that Joy Amoroso was blackmailing Greg Stanton over not actually painting his paintings.
  • In Death of a Bachelorette, Hope has been blackmailing fellow contestant Brianna Scott for being a male-to-female transgender woman.
  • Tommy gets his fair share of blackmail going in Death of a Gigolo, such as blackmailing Solange the maid over stealing from one of Daisy's money stashes (which he blamed Kate for, by the way).
  • Misty Baines was blackmailing Preston Chambers over the two of them sleeping together while Preston is married and Corky MacLaine over being bald and wearing a wig. The latter is what got her rat poison in her smoothie.
• Blackmail Backfire: Said blackmail tends to be why some victims wind up on the other side of the ground.
  • In Death by Pantyhose, Vic Cleveland blackmailed Reagan Dixon over her past as a porn actress, both to force her to get him a valuable network deal and to marry him. Out of all the people Vic was blackmailing, this was the one he shouldn't have, as she saw him dead.
  • In Pampered to Death, Jaine tries to blackmail Delphine into not revealing Prozac nearly ate one of The Haven's koi fish by threatening to blow the whistle on her snack peddling. Delphine just shoots back that Olga wouldn't fire her because Delphine knows Olga is the one who killed Mallory... except, as it turns out, she isn't.
  • In Death of a Bachelorette, the victim, Hope Harper, tried blackmailing Spencer into marrying her by threatening to release photos of him in his dog collar fetish. Hoo boy, did that backfire...
  • In Death of a Gigolo Tommy realized that "Daisy Kincaid" is actually his aunt Emma Shimmel, who murdered the real Daisy and took her place. To keep his mouth shut, he made her buy him whatever his black little heart desired, which was to end with him marrying her, getting loaded in a divorce settlement, and likely keep his blackmail train running. Daisy got another idea, if you get the drift...
  • Misty Baines stumbled upon Corky MacLaine putting on his wig, and decided to squeeze money out of him over it. Big mistake.
• Bludgeoned to Death:
  • Stacy Lawrence from This Pen for Hire was beaten to death with a Thighmaster.
  • Amy Leighton from Death by Tiara has her head smashed in with the tiara used for the winner of the beauty pageant.^note Considering it can fit a working clock in it and is larger than the other cheap tiaras being made, it's a bit more plausible than it sounds.
  • Scotty Parker is murdered in Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge when his killer brains him in the head with a stale and frozen chocolate yule log.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: So, to recap for Ethel Cox from "The Dangers of Candy Canes", divorce is a sin, but framing your husband for a murder you committed is A-OK.
• Book Safe:
  • Daisy Kincaid has a bunch around her house in Death of a Gigolo, and $200 goes missing from one. It turns out to have been her maid Solange, who has a shopping addiction.
  • In Murder Gets a Makeover, Bebe Braddock inherited a trait of storing valuables in parts of her clothing from her mother. Justin killed her to steal those things and sell them when the heat died down.
• Bratty Half-Pint: In Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, Jaine's father has to deal with a little kid causing trouble for him on the cruise. The kid ends up banned for life from the cruise line for the crap he pulls on it. Unfortunately, Jaine's dad does as well.
• Bridezilla: Patti Devane. The title of the book she appears in is called Killing Bridezilla, for crying out loud.
• Busman's Holiday: Jaine gets work as the teacher of a memoir writing class on a cruise ship in Killer Cruise. She gets thrown into people's drama, is blackmailed into editing a crewman's manuscript, and of course, has to solve a murder.
• Cardboard Prison: Zigzagged in Death of a Bachelorette. When Dallas is first seen locked up in the jail on Paratito, the key has been left in the lock of her cell. This would normally be fairly easy to escape, but since Dallas doesn't have a clue how to get back to the mansion "Someday My Prince Will Come" is filmed at, there wouldn't be much point in escaping. Besides, with the lovestruck Assistant Chief of Police willing to get her anything to make her comfy, she makes do.
• The Casanova:
  • In Last Writes, Quinn Kirkland was sleeping with Audrey, Kandi, Vanessa, and Bianca.
  • In Death by Pantyhose, Vic Cleveland was sleeping with his current girlfriend Allison, waitress Holly, and Reagan Dixon, and those are just the ones we get to know the names of. He even had a book comparing all the women he's slept with.
  • Sven from Pampered to Death has a bit of a reputation for sleeping around behind his wife's back.
• Cast Incest: In-Universe in Last Writes — Quinn Kirkland is revealed to have slept with his co-star Vanessa Dennis, who plays his niece on "Muffy and Me".
• Cats Are Mean: Prozac can be a real pain for Jaine sometimes.
• Changing Yourself for Love: At the end of Death by Tiara, Scott Willis offers to teach Jaine how to be someone more like someone his family would actually like. Jaine, wanting a lover who likes her for her, shuts that idea down and breaks up with him.
• Christmas Episode: Novellas "The Dangers of Candy Canes", "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies" and "Nightmare on Elf Street", as well as the full book Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, which all revolve around the Christmas season.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Jaine used to teach a memoir writing class at a retirement home, where she constantly had to deal with one resident named Abe Goldman who had a crush on her. They haven't been seen or mentioned for a long while.
• Chute Sabotage: This is how Hope Harper bites the dust in ''Death of a Bachelorette. On her skydiving date with Spencer, his chute manages to open in spite of his raging incompetence. Hope's, not so much.
• Companion Cube: In Murder Has Nine Lives, Jaine gets interested in Jim Angelides, the nephew of her boss at her biggest client, Toiletmasters Plumbing. When she and Jim go on a date, Jim decides to run Jaine by his roommate Arnold for his approval. Arnold, however, is a teddy bear. He even takes him to the restaurant he reserved to take Jaine to, revealing he and Arnold stage big fights to get out of paying for meals when the restaurants kick them out. Jim's uncle Phil finds this out, revealing to Jaine that he thought Jim was taking his meds.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Witch, Marvin Cooper from Death of a Trophy Wife tells Jaine he wants to change up his ad campaign for Mattress King Mattresses, which was "If you can find a cheaper mattress anywhere, I'll eat my crown", which he has been using for 20 years. However, Death of a Trophy Wife (the book right before this one, mind you) clearly states the "I'll eat my crown" thing is something Jaine came up with for him in that book.
    • In the same book, the victim is killed by being stabbed in the heart with her "Do Not Trespass" sign. However, some descriptions of the book say she was bludgeoned with it, not stabbed.
  • The description for Death of a Gigolo says that Tommy, the victim, is stabbed to death with a solid gold Swiss Army knife gifted to him by Daisy Kincaid, but the book says the knife is platinum.
• Creepy Crossdresser:
  • In The PMS Murder, Pam Kenton disguised herself as a male building inspector to get into Rochelle's and mess with the guacamole, and later dresses as a male employee of the hotel Jaine is going to to kill her.
  • Fiona Williams from Death of a Trophy Wife can pass herself off as a man pretty well, which comes in handy when she lures out Bunny's maid Lupe to silence her.
  • Barnaby, the killer of "Nightmare on Elf Street", dresses up as a sort of grandma character while murdering Scotty.
  • In Death by Tiara, Jaine discovers pageant judge Dr. Edwin Fletcher, is a crossdresser, and was being blackmailed by Candace over it. He only really goes into the "creepy" territory when he attacks Jaine to scare her out of talking. He's also not the killer.
• Cruise Episode:
  • Killer Cruise, if the title wasn't enough of a giveaway.
  • Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge has the "Jaine's parents" subplot of Jaine's parents going on a cruise for Christmas.
• Dating Catwoman:
  • Jaine's has fallen for a couple of guys, only for them to turn out to be the killer. This includes Cameron Bannick from This Pen For Hire, Peter Connor from Death of a Neighborhood Witch, and Justin from Murder Gets a Makeover.
  • Lance has also done this with Peter Connor as well, and Graham from Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge (though the former was more hanging out with him, and ends up telling Lance he's not gay.
• Deadly Prank: This turns out to be the murder motive in the Last Writes. Before the book's event, the victim, Quinn Kirkland, worked as a valet. He had a habit of putting things in the gloveboxes of various customers, such as chili dogs and women's panties. In one car, he ended up putting a snake. This gave the driver a fatal heart attack. That driver was a Jessica Dumont, Wells Dumont's wife. Years later, Wells ended up working on "Muffy and Me" alongside Quinn, and when he heard Quinn tell the story, he figured out what happened to his wife, and got some payback.
• Dead All Along: It's revealed in Death of a Gigolo that Daisy Kincaid, the woman who hired Jaine to write her romance book, was actually murdered by her companion, and said companion is the Daisy that Jaine and the staff know.
• Depraved Bisexual: The killers of Dean Oliver in Murder Has Nine Lives turn out to be his wife Linda and his lover Camille Townsend, who have been hooking up for a while.
• Disappeared Dad: Cassie from Killing Cupid reveals that her father, an actor, abandoned her mother while she was pregnant with Cassie.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Garth Janken from "The Dangers of Candy Canes" dies when he slips off his roof thanks to loosened shingles.
  • Dr. Preston McCay dies this way in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies" when the killer sabotages the cable used to make him fly in the play he was performing in.
  • Hope from Death of a Bachelorette is killed when the killer cuts the cords on the parachute she was using in a skydiving scene.
  • Death of a Gigolo tells how Daisy Kincaid's companion died from falling off a cliff during a nature walk years ago. It's actually Daisy who died, and the companion, Emma Shimmel, killed her to take her place and money.
• Dreadful Musician: Taylor Van Sant from Death by Tiara. She's a sweet and smart kid, but man, she cannot sing to save her life.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Pam Knight, mother of Ginny Knight, hung herself before the events of "The Dangers of Gingerbread Men" after the victim, Dr. McCay, botched an eye-lift on her and demolished her lawsuit against him.
  • In Pampered to Death, it's revealed that Mallory Francis forced an assistant director named Pablo Sandoval to get her fresh mangos during a hurricane, which resulted in him crashing his car and needing a wheelchair for 15 years, ending when he eventually shot himself. This inspired his wife Lorraine, AKA Cathy Kane to kill Mallory.
  • It's revealed in Killing Cupid that this happened to Cassie's mother, courtesy of Joy Amoroso.
• Drives Like Crazy:
  • Kandi Toblowski, Jaine's best friend, is a very crazy driver.
  • In The PMS Murder, the victim, Marybeth Olsen, drives her car like a madwoman. Jaine figures she's going to get someone hurt like that. In fact, Marybeth has done so before... to Doris' husband Glenn.
• Edible Bludgeon: Scotty Parker, the victim of Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, is killed when his head gets bashed in with a frozen chocolate yule log.
• Electrified Bathtub: How SueEllen Kingsley is killed in Killer Blonde.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • In Last Writes, Jaine has two that let her figure out that Wells is the killer and how he pulled off poisoning Quinn; hearing Marco the prop man recount stories Quinn told about his days as a valet (giving Wells a very good motive to kill him) and the warm up guy doing magic tricks (remembering Wells was a magician and explaining how he could have poisoned the doughnuts without being in the prop room).
  • Throughout Death by Pantyhose, Kandi has been trying to find an actress to go through driving school for her. Jaine scolding Kandi for hiring someone to do her dirty work for her leads her to realize Reagan Dixon did the same thing with killing Vic.
• Evil Brit: Spencer Dalworth VII, the killer from Death of a Bachelorette.
• Evil Is Petty: Scotty Parker from Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge was not only a blackmailing cheapskate, he was also a jerk who cut power to his neighbor's Christmas decorations, and told a bunch of little kids Santa Claus was in the hospital from a stroke.
• Evil Old Folks: Several of the killers turn out to be senior citizens, including:
  • Wells Dumont in Last Writes, albeit in a Downplayed way given his motive. See Affably Evil for details.
  • Ethel Cox from "The Dangers of Candy Canes".
  • Clyde "Doc" Wilkins from "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies".
  • Emily Pritchard in Killer Cruise.
  • Skip Holmeier III from Killing Cupid.
  • Emma Shimmel posing as Daisy Kincaid from Death of a Gigolo.
• Eye Scream:
  • Clyde Wilkins catches a ping-pong ball to the eye courtesy of Hank Austen in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies" and gets a nasty black eye from it. Jaine exploits this to save herself from him trying to kill her by throwing one of the prop cookies into his bad eye.
  • When she's trying to fight off Peter Connor in Death of a Neighborhood Witch, Jaine jabs him in the eye with the sharp end of his broken Buddha figurine.
• Failed a Spot Check: In Killer Blonde, SueEllen was so self absorbed, she didn't notice the maid Conchi was actually her own sister, Carolee. Carolee did usually keep her head down and put on a black wig, but still...
• Fake Charity: The Tiny Tim Project, from "Nightmare on Elf Street". In theory, it is a toy drive for underprivileged kids. In reality, Barnaby just pockets the cash from his sponsors and sells off the toys online. Scotty found this out, and that's why Barnaby did him in.
• Fat Camp: It's quickly shown that luxury spa The Haven from Pampered to Death is really just one of these, and a grueling one, too.
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: It turns out the new life of Jaine's ex-husband The Blob is this in Death of a Gigolo. He claims he is a graphic artist in an advertising agency, owning a BMW and a condo with an ocean view, but in reality, he's a valet, and the condo and BMW belong to his boss, whom he was housesitting for. Needless to say, Jaine dumps his lying ass after finding this out.
• Faux Affably Evil: In "Nightmare on Elf Street", Barnaby King seems like a great guy, complimenting Jaine, being great with the kids in Santa Land, and even running a charity that helps less fortunate kids get toys. In reality, it's a scam that's only lining his pockets, and he is more than willing to commit murder to protect that secret.
• The Food Poisoning Incident: What ends up becoming the motive for Graham murdering Scotty Parker in Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge. Part of Scotty's awfulness was tipping his mailman, Graham, with junk, like used socks and the free toothbrushes from his dentist. The one that really screwed things over was a batch of stale cherry chocolates. When Graham ate them the night before an audition, he ended up with food poisoning. Figuring the worst of the poisoning was over, Graham went to his audition, only to end up vomiting on an A-list director's shoes. Someone recording this on their phone uploaded it, the clip went viral, and Graham's acting career was dead in the water.
• Forgotten First Meeting: In Killer Cruise, Graham didn't recognize Emily as a woman he dated long ago, who bailed on her when her father offered him money to dump her. But she recognized him alright...
• Frame-Up:
  • Conchi/Carolee does this to SueEllen's stepdaughter Heidi in Killer Blonde. She admits she likes Heidi well enough, but did it anyway.
  • This is the main motive for Nina, the killer of Shoes to Die For. She planned on framing her roommate Becky for Frenchie's murder so she could take Tyler as her boyfriend.
  • The killer in Death by Pantyhose (Hank) does this to Dorcas McKenzie, since she had strangled Vic by hand earlier that night.
  • Ethel Cox does this to her husband Willard in "The Dangers of Candy Canes".
  • Conrad Devane, the killer of Killing Bridezilla, plants the bit of the drill used to sabotage the railing in Normalynne Butler's car after she made a drunken scene at the wedding ceremony.
  • Peter more or less does this to Jaine in Death of a Neighborhood Witch, when he takes the ape costume she wore to the Halloween party and wears it while stabbing Cryptessa.
• Freudian Slip:
  • Conrad Devane does this by saying he saw Dickie Potter making out with Veronica Hubbard in Patti's gazebo in Killing Bridezilla. The problem is that it's Patti's "secret gazebo" which is only visible from the balcony. Thus, the only time he could have seen this happen is if he was on the balcony, sabotaging the railing.
  • One of these really screws over the killer in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". When Dr. Preston McCay asks Clyde "Doc" Wilkins if he's the famous cardiologist Clyde Wilkins, he says yes... except he actually isn't. He would have been more careful, but he had just been hit in the eye with a ping-pong ball and wasn't thinking straight.
  • A non-suspect variant appears in Death by Tiara, after Heather Van Sant has slugged another contestant's mom in the face, thus getting her daughter Taylor kicked out of the pageant:
  Meanwhile, Taylor was whining, "Mom, can't we please go home?"
  "Are you kidding? We're not going anywhere without my tiara-I mean, your tiara."
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-Universe, the remake of A Christmas Carol that Scotty was in isn't aired often in the US, but is very popular in Japan.
• The Ghost: Stacy Lawrence from This Pen For Hire and Garth Janken from "The Dangers of Candy Canes" are the only main murder victims Jaine does not meet before they are murdered.
• Go Through Me: When Jaine is nearly attacked by Graham in Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, she saves herself by putting his beloved stuffed rabbit — a former pet the killer valued very much — on her chest, preventing him from attacking her.
• Gold Digger:
  • Spiro Papadalos from Death by Pantyhose is married to the daughter of a billionaire made rich from pita. Risk of a divorce from finding out about his sleeping with a prostitute that Vic was blackmailing him with gives him a good motive to kill the guy. However, he didn't, and just paid Vic off. He does, however, get found out and gets the boot from his wife, who then gets his club in the divorce.
  • As it turns out in Killing Bridezilla, Dickie was planning on marrying Patti Devane for her money, then getting a divorce settlement and living with the money and the woman he really loved, Veronica. It doesn't pay off, since Patti lost most of her money investing in really bad business ideas.
  • Graham Palmer III of Killer Cruise was clearly only marrying Emily Pritchard for her money. Wouldn't be the first time he dated her and got money out of it.
  • It becomes obvious to Jaine that Ginny Knight is this towards Preston McCay, given how he's so much older than her and is a pretty shitty guy. Ginny is definitely after his money, but it's less because she wants to be married to a rich retired plastic surgeon, and more that she wants to rob Preston blind as a way of getting payback for him botching an eye lift he performed on her mother, which drove the poor woman to suicide.
  • It's revealed in Death of a Bachelorette that Spencer was planning to marry Dallas for her father's money, then get a divorce and live out the rest of his days with Polly Reilly. Hope was a Spanner in the Works for that by blackmailing him, so she had to go.
• Gonk: King Konga from "Death of a Bachelorette" is described as this. In his 60's, fat, and most revoltingly, he only has 6 teeth in his mouth and only three hairs on his head.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: When Jaine manages to keep the killer of Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge from killing her, Lance knocks them out cold with a champagne bottle.
• Halloween Episode: Death of a Neighborhood Witch, which revolves around solving a murder that happened on Halloween night.
• Hate Sink:
  • In Killer Blonde, the more you see of SueEllen Kingsley, the more it becomes clear why someone would want to kill her.
  • Vic Cleveland from Death By Pantyhose was an abusive, blackmailing weasel who treated everyone around him like dirt.
  • Everything Mallory Francis does in Pampered to Death will make the reader want to strangle her themselves before the killer actually does.
• Hated by All:
  • In Pampered to Death, Mallory Francis was so despised that crew members who have worked with Mallory raise a defense fund for her killer that reaches nearly a million dollars.
  • It's clear that practically all the suspects hated Dean Oliver in Murder Has Nine Lives.
• He Knows Too Much: More than a few of the victims of the book were killed because of their knowledge of unpleasant secrets, and the killers have a nasty tendency to try and rub Jaine out when she discovers that they are the killer. In fact, the only murderer who hasn't tried to murder Jaine in the series is Wells Dumont from Last Writes.^note Jaine does end up almost dying at the end of that book too, but that was an accident on his part after Jaine tries to stop him from committing suicide with the studio roller coaster.
  • In The PMS Murder, Marybeth saw Pam Kenton stealing her winning lottery ticket.
  • In Death of a Trophy Wife the killer lures Bunny's maid Lupe to a "job interview" to keep her quiet about their identity, after Lupe figured out who was really supposed to die that night, but couldn't report it due to her immigration status. When they have Lupe where they want her, they bash in her head with a tire iron and throw her in a dumpster. Thankfully, Lupe survives.
  • In "The Dangers of Gingerbread Men" Dr. McCay was killed because he figured out that "Doc" Wilkins wasn't actually a doctor, retired or otherwise.
  • Scotty from "Nightmare on Elf Street" was killed when he threatened to sic the cops on Barnaby over hid charity project being a scam.
  • Death By Tiara's victim, Amy Leighton, was murdered by her boss Candace because she had discovered Candace taking bribes and wanted to report her.
• Hollywood Natives: Jaine meets some in Death of a Bachelorette, particularly their king, Konga, who wants Jaine to be his 12th wife.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: In Shoes to Die For, it's revealed that instead of a nurse, Becky's roommate Nina is a stripper and a prostitute. Hooker? Yes. Heart of Gold? HELL no.
• Hope Spot: In Murder Gets a Makeover, after Prozac saves a philanthropist's life (see Accidental Hero above), the man writes Jaine a check for $50,000... and then a few days later, is arrested for insider trading.
• Hypocrite:
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Witch, Lila Wood is campaigning against a property developer named Ralph Manusco, calling him evil. This is despite the fact that not only is she his lover (while he's a married man by the way), she is hoping to get his project approved when she wins her race for Neighborhood Council President.
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, Scotty Parker constantly rants about his co-star's lack of talent when he rewatches the A Christmas Carol he starred in as Tiny Tim. Jaine informs the readers that this is despite Scotty's performance is beyond "syrupy".
• I Never Said It Was Poison:
  • Jaine clues in that Pam is the killer in The PMS Murder after stating Rochelle talked to a building inspector on the day of the murder, despite Jaine never mentioning a building inspector. This is because Pam was that building inspector.
  • Sam Weinstock mentions that Jaine fixed the terrible hairdo Gustavo Mendez gave her in Death by Pantyhose. Jaine notices she never mentioned where she got the crappy haircut, and Sam then reveals she set it up to drive Andrew Ferguson away from Jaine.
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, Scotty's ex-wife Elise describes the murder weapon (a frozen chocolate yule log), even down to the writing on it ^note "Merry Christmas, Aunt Harriet". Scotty was really cheap., which had not been mentioned in the media. Elise explains that she learned it from talking to Scotty's current wife, Missy, which Detective Muntner confirms.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Patti Devane of Killing Bridezilla was killed by being impaled through the heart on a statue of Cupid when the railing on the balcony she was reciting her wedding vows from gave way and made her fall.
• Impersonation-Exclusive Character: The woman Jaine knows as Daisy Kincaid in Death of a Gigolo is a somewhat dotty, but kind older woman who is very generous to her staff until Tommy weasels his way into her life. Now Emma Shimmel, the woman who killed her and took over her identity called the real one "a sour old fossil of a boss" who made her life miserable, so it appears the image Emma puts on is in contrast to the real one's personality. Of course, given that Emma is, y'know, a murderer, you could probably take this description with a grain of salt.
• Improvised Weapon:
  • The murder weapon in the first book was a Thighmaster.
  • In Shoes to Die For, the weapon that killed Frenchie was her own stiletto heel. Nina would have shot her, but the crack dealer she bought the gun from apparently didn't load it.
  • Mallory Francis was strangled with the bull kelp that was to be used for her seaweed wrap.
  • The murder weapon of Death of a Neighborhood Witch is the victim's own "Do Not Trespass" sign.
  • The killer of "Nightmare on Elf Street" planned on poisoning Scotty's coffee, but chose to stab him in the heart with an ornament instead.
• Inheritance Murder:
  • What the murder of This Pen for Hire was about, albeit not direct money. Cameron was going to kill Marion to inherit a photo of her in a frame, which in reality, had a photo of Cary Grant underneath it. The murder became pointless because a) the wrong person died and b) Marion was already dead at the time.
  • Also the case in Killer Blonde. SueEllen Kingsley was set to inherit $3 million from her Aunt Melanie. However, that money would go to her sister Carolee if SueEllen died first, so Carolee, AKA Conchi the maid, made that happen.
  • Happens again in Killing Bridezilla. There, Conrad Devane was hoping that Patti's death before the wedding would have her money revert back to her mother, which he could then put back into his developments. Unbeknownst to him, Patti and Dickie had already married earlier in Vegas, so the money actually goes to Dickie...or at least, it would if there was any money left...
• Insane Troll Logic: Jaine's mother Claudia had her and her husband retire to Florida from Hermosa Beach to be closer to the Home Shopping Network (which she is addicted to), and thus be able to get her packages faster.
• It's a Wonderful Plot: Jaine has one of these in a dream in "Nightmare on Elf Street", in which she never adopted Prozac. Apparently, she's no longer friends with Lance, she's so lonely she starts naming her socks, Jaine's dry cleaner and Fancy Feast shut down because she didn't go to them to fulfill Prozac's needs, and Prozac now lives in a Bel-Air mansion where she is named Tinkerbelle and has her own room... and her own maid. Once Jaine wakes up to appreciate her kitty, it's never brought up again.
• I Was Young and Needed the Money: In Death by Pantyhose, Vic was blackmailing Reagan Dixon with the porno film she did in her past.
• Karmic Death:
  • This was Doris' plan for Marybeth in The PMS Murder. Marybeth had earlier caused the car accident that put Doris' husband in a wheelchair and slowly killed him. Once Doris found out who Marybeth was and ultimately determined that Marybeth wasn't the least bit sorry about the accident, Doris decided to drain Marybeth's brake fluid so she'd die in a crash. However, Doris kept backing out due to fear of being seen in the act, and the problem ultimately resolved itself when someone else killed Marybeth.
  • This is what was in mind with the death of Joy Amoroso in Killing Cupid. She fed Skip Holmeier's cat chocolate, which poisoned her, so he killed Joy with a piece of chocolate laced with poison.
• Kick the Dog: Not only does Cameron reveal to Jaine that he seduced the owner of the B&B he was "staying at" in order for her to give him an alibi in This Pen For Hire, he says he was disgusted by the owner's body and had to imagine she was Sharon Stone in order to sleep with her. Oh, and he was going to do the same with Jaine that night before he realized she knew he was the killer.
• Kill and Replace:
  • In Pampered to Death, it's revealed that "Cathy" (real name Lorraine Sandoval) was actually using the identity and credit cards of her cousin, and did so by murdering her. Apparently, they weren't that close.
  • In Death of a Gigolo, Jaine discovers that the Daisy Kincaid she knows is actually the companion of the real Daisy Kincaid, and the real one is the one who died on the nature walk. The companion, Emma Shimmel, murdered the reclusive Daisy in order to take over her life and fortune.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: In Last Writes, the book's main murder victim is Quinn Kirkland, who's eaten a doughnut covered in rat poison. His last words are "I think there's something wrong with this do-" before dropping dead.
• Kissing Cousins: Vladimir ends up marrying his cousin Sofi in Death of a Trophy Wife.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jaine narrates from a first person perspective and addresses the reader. Most pressingly so in "The Dangers of Candy Canes", where she states that readers who got the book to read about Hannah Swensen's latest adventure may be wondering why a roofing contractor is asking Jaine to look into the death of his client, since Jaine isn't a PI.
• Learnt English from Watching Television: King Konga, the native king of Paratito Island that Jaine meets in Death of a Bachelorette, says he learned to speak English this way. His choice of programs is limited to things like The Dean Martin Show and I Love Lucy, so his use of terms like "groovy chick" is rather dated.
• Lie Back and Think of England: This is how Camille made it through sex with Dean in Murder Has Nine Lives, by thinking about all of Dean's money she'd have alongside his wife.
• Locked in a Freezer: When Jaine discovers that Linda and Camille are the killers in Murder Has Nine Lives, they lock her in the freezer Camille has installed in her bedroom.^note It was originally a fur closet, and Camille had it converted so she wouldn't have to go downstairs for ice cream.
• Locked Room Mystery: A very minor one not related to the murder in Death of a Bachelorette. No matter what Jaine does (including getting a bolt installed on her door), Prozac keeps escaping from her room. It's revealed she was escaping via a hole in the wall hidden from sight by Jaine's bed.
• The Lost Lenore: In Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, Lance falls for a mailman named Graham. Graham keeps bringing up his lost love Peter, who died before the events of the book. Peter, as it turns out, was his pet rabbit.
• Luxury Prison Suite: When Dallas is arrested for Hope's murder in Death of a Bachelorette and put in the Paratito Jail, she ends up asking the assistant Chief of Police (keep in mind, there are two whole people in Paratito Island's police force), to get her various things, like magazines, a comfy cover for her bed, and even soft pillows.
• Mistaken for Cheating:
  • Jaine's father thinks her mother is cheating on him with a Home Shopping Network salesman in Last Writes. She's not.
  • He later suspects his "arch rival" Lydia Pinkus is having an affair with a married man in Murder Gets a Makeover, after hearing what he thinks is her voice calling into a radio psychiatrist's show, seeing what he believes is her meeting with a man in a fancy restaurant, and overhearing Lydia book a motel room while tailing her. She isn't, and the motel room was to accommodate her cousins flying into Florida.^note Ironically, the radio psychiatrist he heard "Lydia" on is the one sleeping with a married man.
• Mistaken for Gay: In This Pen for Hire, Jaine isn't sure if Cameron is gay or not. He isn't, but he acknowledges that he ticks a few boxes of stereotypes (owns an antique shop, platonic relationships with older women, etc.).
• Mock Millionaire: In The PMS Murder, it's revealed that while Ashley Morgan appears rich, she's actually up to her eyeballs in debt.
• Murder by Mistake:
  • Cameron did this to Stacy in This Pen for Hire. He was trying to kill his friend Marion Hamilton to inherit a photograph that would sell for a pretty penny, bailing him out of his money troubles. He had been out of town for a month, so he didn't realize that Marion had already died and Stacy (who somewhat resembled Marion, and wa laying away from him in bed) had moved into her apartment. He's not horribly broken up about it, considering that he thought Stacy was a bitch.
  • This is also revealed to be what happened with Bunny's death in Death of a Trophy Wife. Fiona was actually trying to kill Lance in order to save her job as Bunny's fashion consultant. However, Lupe the maid had accidentally spilled Bunny's cocktail, and poured Lance's drink into her glass to keep from incurring Bunny's wrath.
  • In Death by Tiara, Amy Leighton died because she was wearing the same blue blazer as the pageant director Candace Burke, and looked like her from behind with her blonde hair.However, that's actually just the story Candace was hoping for, to throw suspicion off herself.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Nina's plan in Shoes To Die For. Or rather, "frame the hypotenuse for murder".
• Named After Somebody Famous: The detective working the case in Murder Gets a Makeover is named Denzel G. Washington. While Jaine doesn't actually ask if he was named after the actor, she does say "Loved you in Training Day" when she first meets him at the crime scene. He does not look amused by this.
• Never Heard That One Before: People have a tendency to say "love your books" whenever Jaine introduces herself by her full name. Suffice to say, she isn't horribly fond of that joke.
• Never Suicide: Kirk from Death of a Bachelorette appears to kill himself via a drug overdose. Jaine isn't convinced, of course.
• Nosy Neighbor: Lance starts the series as Jaine's annoying neighbor who doesn't like loud noises coming from her apartment. In the end of This Pen For Hire, his nosiness winds up saving her life when he calls the police on a murderer forcing his way into her apartment to try killing her.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In Death of a Bachelorette, when Jaine is taking some of Dallas' things to her in the Paratito jail, she goes on to describe Downtown Paratito.
  "The whole shebang consisted of a general store and post office, the jail, and a Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. I kid you not, It was directly across the street from the jail, for Paratitans in desperate need of a chai latte."
• Not with Them for the Money: Very, very, VERY Averted in the case of Graham from Killer Cruise. The wealthy Emily Pritchard fell in love with a man named Graham Palmer III, who worked as a steward on board the cruise ship she was on and was set to marry him. However, Emily's father offered the steward money to break up with her. The man averted this trope by taking the money without a second thought and dumping her without a word. In fact, the money meant so much more to Graham, that when he ended up meeting Emily again when the book's events happen, he didn't recognize her at all, and just saw her as a rich woman he could dig his claws into. But she remembered him and killed him for it.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve: This is how Wells Dumont was able to poison Quinn in Last Writes. Quinn's character offers Wells' character a box of doughnuts to eat, and Wells' character waves his hand to refuse. Wells, due to his experience as a magician, had a vial of rat poison up his sleeve, and used it to add a few new sprinkles to the box by using the motion in waving his hand.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Jaine constantly refers to her ex-husband as "The Blob". Death of a Gigolo, where she and him briefly get back together, reveals his actual name to be Dickie Elliott.
• One-Steve Limit: Subverted — there are two murder victims both named Scotty, and both in Christmas stories.
  • "Nightmare on Elf Street" features Scotty (no last name), a Mall Santa who's stabbed in the heart.
  • Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge features Scotty Parker, a Former Child Star who's bludgeoned to death.
  • There are also two Hispanic maids named Lupe in the series. One in Death of a Trophy Wife, the other in Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge.
• Phony Degree: Effectively the motive for the murder in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". Dr. McCay realized that "Doc" Clyde Wilkins was not an actual doctor and planned to expose him.
  • In the same book Ginny Knight, the new aerobics instructor at Tampa Vistas outright states she got a fake degree to get the job to get closer to Preston.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: In Death of a Neighborhood Witch, this is revealed to be the motive for Peter Connor murdering Cryptessa. Cryptessa showed him the horror story she had been writing for years because he is a book editor. Legally he couldn't take it because it was unsolicited, but when he read the manuscript she left on his doorstep, he found it was actually pretty good. He had grown jealous of his clients making big bucks on books, and figured he wanted in on the action. He murdered Cryptessa once he found out she hadn't shown the manuscript to anyone.
• Porn Stash: Pete the bartender from Death by Pantyhose has a large porn collection, adding to his creepiness. He actually ditches it when he finds Jesus.
• Rags to Riches: Bebe Braddock and her sister Anna from Murder Gets a Makeover came to the US from Bosnia with their parents and just the clothes on her back.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: One of the ways Misty is just a terrible actress in Death by Smoothie.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • In The PMS Murder a new resident moves to the retirement community Jaine's parents live in. Her father Hank suspects him of being a Serial Killer known as "The Hugo Boss Strangler" and sets out to prove it. The reverend, of course is not The Hugo Boss Strangler... but he is a drug dealer and a con man.
  • When Jaine's scuba tank hose is cut in Killer Cruise, Leona figures it was a local who did it because "they're hot-blooded Latins".^note This cruise is one to Mexico.. It's revealed it was a local, but that was because Emily paid him off to do it.
  • In Murder Gets a Makeover, Lance believes his co-worker Sven Gustafson is the one who killed Bebe, as she used to be his client at Neiman Marcus before she moved onto Lance. He gets this from him acting nervous when going into the stock room and having a twin brother who could have made it look like he was on a trip to Oslo at the time of the murder. Sven isn't the murderer, but he has been stealing shoes from Neiman Marcus to sell on the Oslo black market.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The plot (if you want to be generous and call it that) of Scotty Parker's In-Universe screenplay, "The Return of Tiny Tim: Vengeance is Mine!" from Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge. The film would center around the great-great-great grandson of Tiny Tim hunting down the descendants of Ebenezer Scrooge, as the Heel–Face Turn from the story apparently didn't last long, as he went back to being a greedy bitch, started squeezing the Cratchits again, and cancelled Tim's foot surgery. It includes moments such as this grandson shooting up a bachelorette party with an Uzi, setting fire to the Lamborghini of a Bradford Scrooge, a decapitation, the grandson apparently using a bulldog in a bowling alley, and a scene of Scotty tying a noose and rambling about defending the Cratchit honor that goes on for five pages of the script.
• Romantic False Lead: Scott Willis, one of the detectives from Killing Cupid, ends up asking out Jaine at the end of that book. Their relationship doesn't make it out of the end of Death by Tiara.
• The Scrooge:
  • Manny Kaminsky from Death of a Bachelorette feeds the crew and cast cheap airline food, while he gets damn good food for himself.
  • Ironically for a man who played Tiny Tim as a child, Scotty Parker from Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge was a very cheap man.
• Sequel Episode: Death by Smoothie follows up on Death of a Neighborhood Witch, as the focus is a play revival of the TV show in that book, "I Married a Zombie".
• Shameless Self-Promotion: When Jaine calls back to some kind of event that happened in a previous book, she tends to drop the title and says it's available wherever books are sold.
• Shout-Out:
  • In-Universe, Jaine is deliberately named for Jane Austen. Her mother was an Anglophile; unfortunately, she was also a bad speller.
  • In Last Writes, Wells Dumont tells Jaine a bit about the time he played a murderer on Columbo.^note  The plot concerns a psychiatrist who murders his blackmailing lover. This seems to bear the closest resemblance to Season 4's "A Deadly State of Mind". It serves as foreshadowing that he's the murderer.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare:
  • In Last Writes, Wells Dumont has a tendency to quote Shakespeare, and ultimately utters "Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough'!" before killing himself via taking a fatal roller coaster ride in a cart that he'd cut the brakes on.
  • Killing Bridezilla starts off by the book's victim hiring Jaine to write her wedding vows in the style of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet "without all the icky double suicide business". Jaine is not thrilled with the assignment, to say the least.
• Sibling Murder: SueEllen Kingsley from Killer Blonde is murdered by her own sister, Carolee.
• Significant Name Overlap: In-Universe, it's revealed there are two Clyde Wilkins in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". One is a famous cardiologist, the other is a resident of Tampa Vistas. The Tampa Vistas one is not a doctor (he used to be a pipe fitter), even though the residents think he is. When Preston McCay finds this out, he plans to expose Wilkins, which leads to McCay being murdered.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Jaine's father has one in Lydia Pinkus, President of the Tampa Vistas Homeowner's association. It's a pretty one-sided rivalry.
• Skinny Dipping: Jaine gets in a bit of this at a waterfall in Death of a Bachelorette.
• Slipping a Mickey:
  • Nina does this to Jaine in Shoes to Die For. She says she does it to her "tricks" to rob them.
  • The killer of Pampered to Death spikes everyone's tea with Valium so that they pass out during their seaweed wrap to give themselves the chance to choke Mallory to death.
• Southern Belle: Killer Blonde features SueEllen Kingsley, who is definitely a mauvaise. Rather subverted, as it turns out the Aunt Melanie SueEllen raved about was actually running a whorehouse, and SueEllen didn't grow up in the splendor she said she did.
• Stage Mom: Heather Van Sant from Death By Tiara to her daughter Taylor, as is Luanne Summers to her daughter Gigi.
• Stealing from the Till: It's discovered that in Killer Cruise, that Kyle Pritchard has been embezzling from his aunt Emily so he and Leona Nesbitt can run off to the Cayman Islands. Neither of them are the killer, but they get disinherited and fired respectively.
• Stopped Clock: The tiara used as the murder weapon in Death by Tiara had a clock on it, stopped at 2:34 PM. Candace used that to her advantage, setting the time on the clock to a time when she would be at the dance rehearsal and thus, have an alibi.
• Stronger Than They Look:
  • Hank from Death By Pantyhose. He looks like a 90-pound weakling scared of his own shadow and using a workout machine as a coat rack. In reality, he works out often and apparently could have beaten Vic to a bloody pulp if he really wanted to.
  • In Death of a Neighborhood Witch, one of Jaine's neighbors is a little older woman, but she can lift up the end of a heavy couch like it was nothing.
• Stylistic Suck: A lot of fictional work Jaine comes across is so clearly terrible.
  • "Do Not Disturb"^note Styled and even eventually published as "Do Not Distub" from Killer Cruise is a prime example. Jaine is forced to edit the manuscript of a crewman named Samoa to keep Prozac's being on the ship a secret. Long story there. Anyhoo, the thing is a woefully ridiculous tale of a steward who foils a terrorist plot while performing his steward duties. The tale has him disarming a nuclear device with a plunger, the protagonist is clearly based on him (his name is Samoa Huffington III) as a Gary Stu with a huge penis and ends with him riding off in the "Samoa mobile". For a kick in the ass, it becomes a New York Times bestseller and gets a movie adaptation starring Antonio Banderas (albeit with them describing it as absurdist literature).
• Sure, Let's Go with That: What effectively kicked off the murder in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". Clyde Wilkins spent his life as a pipe fitter, given the nickname "Doc" for being such a smooth operator with the ladies.^note Well, the operator part is true enough, but Jaine argues he isn't smooth. When he first arrived at Tampa Vistas, he introduced himself to a woman with his nickname. With a nickname like "Doc", the woman assumed he used to be a doctor. Clyde was going to admit he wasn't but kept up the ruse when he got plenty of attention from the ladies. Then Preston came along and everything went to Hell.
• Sweet Polly Oliver:
  • Pam disguises herself as a male building inspector to tamper with the guacamole in The PMS Murder.
  • Also the case with Fiona Williams from Death of a Trophy Wife, who dresses in men's clothing during her meeting with Lupe where she intends to kill her.
• Sympathetic Murderer:
  • Wells Dumont from Last Writes. It was obviously wrong of him to kill Quinn Kirkland, but considering Quinn accidentally killed Wells' wife in addition to all the other terrible things he did, it's hard to blame the guy.
  • Cathy Kane from Pampered to Death, or as her name really is, Lorraine Sandoval. Years ago, Alpha Bitch Mallory Francis forced Lorraine's husband, an assistant director named Pablo out into a hurricane in order to get her fresh mangos, and as a result, Pablo was injured and forced to use a wheelchair. After fifteen years, the poor man shot himself. It's hard to blame Cathy for choking the life out of Mallory... or at least it is right up until "Cathy" reveals that in order to throw suspicion off herself by not going in under the Sandoval name, she murdered her own cousin to steal her identity.
• Tampering with Food and Drink:
  • Quinn Kirkland from Last Writes dies after eating a doughnut covered in rat poison.
  • Marybeth Olsen from The PMS Murder is killed by guacamole laced with peanut oil, triggering a fatal allergic reaction.
  • Bunny of Death of a Trophy Wife dies when her martini is spiked with weed killer. It's revealed that it wasn't meant for her martini to be poisoned, but rather Lance's.
  • Barnaby's original plan to kill Scotty was to slip poison into his thermos of "coffee" (tequila), but when Prozac created havoc at the mall, stabbed him in the heart instead.
  • Joy Amoroso of Killing Cupid is killed from chocolate injected with cyanide. It's meant to be poetic justice, as she had unintentionally poisoned Skip Holmeier's cat Miss Marple by feeding her chocolate.
  • Dean Oliver from Murder Has Nine Lives is killed from eating diet cat food sprayed with a can of odorless Raid.
  • Misty Baines from Death by Smoothie dies from a poisoned... well, smoothie.
• Teacher/Student Romance:
  • In Shoes to Die For, Tyler is revealed to be in one with his writing instructor while he's dating Becky. It's not based in any real love for Tyler, however. He's just using the instructor as a way of making connections to get his work published.
  • Justin, Jaine's new lover in Murder Gets a Makeover, is revealed to be sleeping with his music teacher. Especially troubling because she gave him an alibi for Bebe's murder, which he had committed.
• Til Murder Do Us Part: In Killer Cupid, as Skip Holmeier III is trying to kill Jaine, he also admits that a food injector filled with cyanide (the way he poisoned Joy's chocolate) is also how he murdered his wife, Nancy Ruth Holmeier.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Jaine's is Chunky Monkey Ice Cream.
  • Mallory Francis from Pampered to Death loves mangos, so much so that she has a clause in her contract that she won't perform without them, and she'd have no issue gambling a movie crew member's life by having him drive out in a hurricane to get her some. It ends up biting her in the ass in the long run.
• Vacation Episode:
  • Killer Cruise, which takes place on a cruise ship.
  • "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies" sees Jaine visiting her parents in their Florida retirement community for Christmas.
  • Pampered to Death sees Jaine staying at a spa... or, rather, a place advertised as a spa.
  • Death of a Bachelorette sees Jaine going to Paratito island, a South Pacific Island near Tahiti.
• Valentine's Day Episode: Killing Cupid. This could also technically apply to This Pen For Hire, as Jaine secures Howard Murdoch a Valentine's Day date with Stacy Lawrence before she's murdered.
• Vehicular Sabotage:
  • In The PMS Murder, the killer puts a box of nails under Jaine's tires to try and scare her off.
    • In the same book, it's revealed that Doris was trying to kill Marybeth this way by draining her brakes, but didn't due to a risk of being seen and the problem effectively solving itself when someone else did her in.
  • In Death by Pantyhose, the gear shift in Wheezy (the first car Jaine rents after her car is stolen), the gear shift breaks in her hand. She assumes this is because the car is an absolute clunker, but "Crazy Dave" reveals that someone unscrewed it to make that happen. Jaine realizes the killer did that.
• Walking Disaster Area: Jaine's father, Hank, manages to make a giant mess of things no matter what the situation.
• Weaponized Allergy: In The PMS Murder, Marybeth Olsen is killed via someone taking advantage of her peanut allergy.
• Wedding Episode: Killing Bridezilla, which revolves around Jaine getting hired to script wedding vows for her old high school classmate and nemesis Patti Devane, only to end up having to solve her murder.
• Wicked Stepmother:
  • SueEllen Kingsley of Killer Blonde, to the nth degree. With the way she mistreats Heidi (including destroying the last thing connecting her to her birth mother), any decent parent reading the book would be forgiven for wanting to rip SueEllen's eyes out.
  • A "wicked stepfather" variation for Conrad Devane of Killing Bridezilla. The man was perfectly willing to kill Patti to collect her money and revitalize his business and kill the man who was covering him.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Each book ends with what happened to each character by the end of the story. That is, for the books except for Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, which ends with Jaine going on a date and reconnecting with her ex-husband, the Blob. The format switches to a collection of news headlines in Death of a Gigolo, then reverts back to normal in Murder Gets a Makeover.
• Who Murdered the Asshole:
  • SueEllen Kingsley from Killer Blonde was such a heinous bitch, there's plenty of people in her life who'd have wanted her dead.
  • Vic Cleveland from Death By Pantyhose was screwing over, just plain screwing, abusing, and blackmailing so many people, Jaine finds she has a lot of suspects in his murder.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • In Killer Blonde, Conchi/Carolee says once she has her inheritance, she plans on making sure the boyfriend who provided her an alibi meets with a fatal accident.
  • Happens to Julio the gardener in Killing Bridezilla. He noticed Conrad Devane tampering with the balcony railing, but then made a deal with him that he would claim he saw a woman on the balcony in exchange for a payoff and moving into a fancy house. When Julio went to claim his money, the killer just shot him dead.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Or rather "my wife", in the case of Wells Dumont in Last Writes.
  • Doris believes this of Marybeth, who crashed into her husband Glenn and crippled him, slowly killing the man before the events of The PMS Murder.
  • Daphna Devane says this to the book's killer, Conrad, in Killing Bridezilla. In that case, it's more "You killed my daughter."
  • A variant on this in "The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies". Dr. McCay performed an eye lift on a Pam Knight years prior. Unfortunately, he badly botched the operation and got off scot free. This drove the poor woman to hang herself. Years later, her daughter Ginny (who had found the body, by the way) found out the guy was moving to Florida and became his fiancé. She planned to take all of his money and ditch him at the altar, but not kill him. That plan doesn't work out due to the murder freezing Preston's assets, but thanks to her inheritance being much more valuable than it first appears, she does get something out of it.
  • Cathy/Lorraine Sandoval believes this of Mallory Francis in Pampered to Death, as the latter sent the former's husband, an assistant director on one of her movies on a run to get fresh mangoes during a hurricane. The guy crashed his car, spent 15 years in a wheelchair, and eventually killed himself.
  • Another variant in Killing Cupid, where it's a case of "you killed my cat".
  • Played straighter in Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, where it's revealed that Dave Kellogg (AKA David Chambers) came into Scotty's house to get back at him for indirectly killing his father by causing stress on his bad heart when they worked together on a remake of A Christmas Carol.