Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too

January 30, 2006
The three sisters Blackbird—Nora, Emma and Libby—return in Martin's charming and funny fifth novel (after 2005's Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die
). Zell Orcutt, a dirty old man on the periphery of the Blackbirds' high-society Philadelphia circle, is found dead. If the arrow shot through his heart at first seems a tad improbable, well, all his disgruntled relatives are archery fans. From a state senator who may not be as dumb as he appears to an obnoxious, busty teenager who thinks she'll come into big bucks now that Zell is dead, the suspects are legion, and Nora, of course, can't resist detecting. But the real mystery is the paternity of the baby Nora's carrying, and whether she is really, truly, finally through with her hunky but oh-so-dangerous lover, Michael Abruzzo.