Strawberry Tattoo

Sam Jones, sculptress and reluctant sleuth, can't resist the opportunity to do Manhattan when she's invited to New York for a group show at a gallery featuring young British artists. New York, loud and brash as Sam herself, welcomes her with open arms and plenty of her favorite margaritas. She's even reunited with Kim, a best friend from childhood who's transformed herself into a quintessential New Yorker, complete with weekly spinning classes and an East Village studio apartment. Despite Sam's promise to stay out of trouble, however, trouble keeps finding he -- one of the gallery's employees is found strangled in Central Park's Strawberry Fields not long after Sam arrives, and the gallery itself has been trashed with graffiti.

While Sam's new Manhattan friends pop Prozac and fret about the police investigation, the rest of the young Brits turn up in New York, including the one Sam drunkenly groped in a club not so long ago. Will the exhibition be a success? Will Sam's current boyfriend -- the dashing actor Hugo -- find out about her moment of abandon? And will the details of the strawberry tattoo give away the murderer's identity before Sam herself becomes a target?

Lauren Henderson is the author of Black Rubber Dress and Freeze My Margarita. She divides her time between Italy and London, and, when not wine-tasting, writes full-time. Lauren, together with other crime girls behaving badly, can be found on tartcity.com, a Web site devoted to "Tart Noir" mysteries.