Chocolate Sauce and Malice

About the Book

James Vandersagen, high-profile hard-ball player in TV, newspapers and communications technology, is visiting the set of a talk show called Come Home with Kate on JGV, his prime property. A large overhead mirror breaks loose, falls on Vandersagen and kills him. Kate Cassidy, the show host, is also hurt.

The accident is quickly determined to be a murder, since the lashings holding the mirror were deliberately broken with remote-controlled explosive devices. Police also discover an open jar of poisoned chocolate sauce—meant for whom?

A number of people are in the studio just before taping, some of whom have motive. All know their way about the JGV studios. Prime suspects are Adele Vandersagen, Jim's jealous wife, and the producer, Rudy Macklin. Also in the studio are Kate's father, Tom, a movie director and, coincidentally, his ex-wife, actress Maureen Cassidy.

In the past, before marrying Tom, Maureen and Jim Vandersagen had a brief and steamy love affair. Tom and Maureen were divorced when Kate was twelve, but have remained doting parents to their only child.

Kate, having been severely injured when the mirror fell, is concerned that she may have been the real target of the murderer. Later she has another brush with death. This time she's certain that it was she, not Vandersagen, who was the killer's true intended victim.

About the Author

Arline Potter, New York-born and bred, arrived in California in the early 80s. A cultural historian in her past life, it was natural that two of her books should focus on California and some of the mega forces driving its population.

Though the building of the transcontinental railroad was long in the past, the spirit of those events haunt us today. "One senses those forces not so much as history, rather as strands in the very fabric of one's daily life. Every time I cross the Sierra, I can almost see the old towns and hear the ring of picks and hammers."

She lives in Coastal California's Monterey County, overlooking a picturesque valley knowing that soon the rural flavor which enchants her may be lost to the encroachment of the silicon hoards looming over the horizon.

She shares her life with her husband; all the children are grown and gone. At this point, she claims to need neither cats nor dogs.

She is currently working on a mystery story set in her native New York City.