High Heels and Homicide Read Online Free PDF Page B

sandwich between her hands. Gourmet all the way. “What’s wrong with the manuscript?”
    Bernie held up a sienna-tipped finger as she nodded her head and chewed, finally swallowed. “You’re a great writer, Maggie. The best. The Saint Just Mysteries are top drawer. I always knew you could write. Never a problem there. Really. Sales? Sales are terrific. You’re carrying us on your back, Mags, so I can say as both your editor and your publisher, Toland Books is damn grateful.”
    â€œBut? Come on, Bernie. We both know there’s a big but coming.”
    Bernie took a sip of lemonade, winced. “But…how do I say this nicely? Okay, I’ve got it. But this book stinks on ice. One hundred thousand words that demonstrate why editors drink. Sorry, honey.”
    â€œIt…it…oh, it does not!”
    â€œNot the writing. The writing’s great. Really. But who wants to read The Case of the Lamenting Lordship ?”
    â€œ The Case of the Lonely Lordship ,” Maggie corrected. She’d never really been nuts over the title, which probably should have told her something. She hated working without a title. “It’s a little dark, I admit it.”
    Bernie pushed her hair back, used its length to tie it in a knot. “Saint Just spends two thirds of the book contemplating his navel and the last third going around making amends for being a bad, bad man, like he’s doing some kind of wacko Regency twelve-step program. I had to prop my eyelids up with toothpicks to read it for more than ten minutes at a time. Where’s the joy? Where’s the humor? Where’s the murder in this murder mystery, for crying out loud? And we’re not even going to talk about the sex, because there wasn’t any.”
    Maggie looked down at her sandwich, her appetite gone. “He killed a man, Bernie. He had to come to terms with what he’d done.”
    â€œOh, yeah, right. He killed a man. Big deal. The guy was no good anyway. Saint Just’s a hero— our hero. If I wanted someone wringing his hands and beating his breast for four hundred pages, I’d buy—hell, I wouldn’t buy that cheap, lazy, manipulative pap. I hate that drivel. Everybody cry? Spare me.”
    â€œSaint Just can’t have a crisis of conscience?”
    Bernie ripped open the bag of tortilla chips, spilling them out on her lap. “Again, spare me. It’s the Saint Just mysteries, Mags, not the confessions of a tarnished hero. Heroes don’t have crises of conscience. They bed the ladies and solve murders, both brilliantly, then go for drinks at Boodles or White’s or somewhere. End of story, watch for the next Saint Just Mystery, available soon.”
    â€œI…I think his character needs to…to grow a little.” Maggie winced, then said the hated word. “Evolve.”
    â€œOh, no. Not that. Please, not that. Are you planning on writing for the critics now, Maggie, instead of your loyal readers? You want a list of all the good popular fiction writers who bought into that crap about not writing real books? I know where I can’t look to find that list—the New York Times , that’s where. Your readers want Saint Just. Edgy, confident, brilliant, a bit of a bastard, but with heart. They don’t want Hugh Grant.”
    Maggie tried to swallow, choked, and reached for her glass. “So…so you want a rewrite?”
    â€œHoney, I want a bonfire, a big one. Except for Sterling’s subplot. Poor guy, that’s the first time in a half-dozen books he finally got laid. I wouldn’t want to lose that—but giving Sterling that nice, tame little love scene instead of Saint Just, not in addition to Saint Just’s rolls in the hay? Nope, that’s a cop-out. It doesn’t work. It’s cheating.”
    Maggie wasn’t going to cry. She refused to cry. She was a professional, damn it, and she was not going