#109 Double-Crossed

Happy October! I’m so happy I made it to this next book just in time for Halloween, which I LOVE! I’m pretty sure this is the very first Sweet Valley High Halloween-themed book ever released (and, I’ll wager, probably the last, though I know the other series also have some). It even has orange covers!

This is the first book in the three book mini-series “Sweet Valley Deception” which is really just a continuation of the last mini-series, “Sweet Valley Scandal.” This soap opera-y shit is starting to grow on me.

As you can see by the above cover, someone is having another fucking costume party only this time there’s actually a holiday that calls for it. Somebody made an attempt at hanging Halloween decorations, but I guess they were too lazy to get out a stepladder and hang those jack-o-lantern garlands a little higher. And what’s with the empty bookshelves? Have y’all never heard of a proper spooky display? I give it a “D” for “Disappointing.” And I can see that while Jessica was busy stealing Sue’s man in the previous books, she was also stealing Bruce and Pamela’s recent sultan-harem girl costume idea, and probably that outfit from the dollar store reject bin. Haha, Jeremy looks like he’s about to haunt Sue’s witchy ass right on top of that innocent pumpkin behind them. I wish Jessica would go to the bathroom and drown herself in the toilet. I haven’t even cracked the book open yet and I’m ready to murder all of these characters. According to the back of the book, in this story Jessica catches Jeremy and Sue together and thinks maybe he’s not what he seems. Are you serious right now?

Our story begins with Jessica waking up at Lila Fowler’s fabulous manse, where she apparently crashed after having wrecked Jeremy and Sue’s wedding the day before, although honestly, she couldn’t have wrecked it without Jeremy’s support. And, better to wreck a wedding than wreck a whole marriage later! Plus Jeremy, who’s 23, is basically an adult preying on a child and I can’t really get past that point now that I’m this old, but this is all shit I’ve gone off on before. ANYWAY! Jeremy calls the house and tells Jessica he wants to see her for dinner that night. Meanwhile, at the Wakefield homestead, the twins’ parents draw Liz into a discussion about how out-of-control Jessica is (because it took them 109+ books to notice) and decide to give Liz a heads up, for some reason, that they’re considering sending Jessica to boarding school in Washington State. Liz then calls Jess at Lila’s to tell her, but Jessica doesn’t think they mean it because she knows these parents don’t really believe in discipline. Oh, but there’s more. Ned is considering having Jeremy brought up on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor which to me says he thinks Jeremy banged his daughter.

On that note, ol’ Ned and Alice are just letting Jessica stay at Lila’s indefinitely. Oh, they called Lila’s mom to give her some “rules” for Jessica, which is hilarious because I’m pretty sure Lila’s parents give even less of a crap than Ma and Pa Wakefield. (And apparently the rules didn’t include anything about whether Jessica can see Jeremy – so weird.) Of course, they probably see it as a good thing that Jessica isn’t at home, both because she’s a sociopath and because they’ve told Sue she can stay with them for as long as she needs. The day after the failed ceremony, Sue spends much of her day in bed crying while Liz makes futile attempts at comforting her. Sue tells Liz that her family created the popular “MealQuick” line of frozen dinners, which Liz apparently eats all the time. Hah, like fuck Liz eats a lot of frozen dinners. This series is always taking great pains to show us how the twins have to cook every damn meal at home. Anyway, so unbeknownst to anyone, Sue was the heiress to the MealQuick fortune – until she met Jeremy. Her mom (who if you recall was Alice’s college roommate Nancy Gibbons) hated Jeremy and was convinced he was only after Sue’s fortune. Hah, I’m sure a 23-year-old man had better reasons for marrying an 18-year-old he barely knows. But Sue says that after Sue and Jeremy got engaged, Nancy wrote her daughter out of the will. So now Nan’s dead and Sue ain’t gettin’ squat and now Sue is gonna die too since she’s got that same blood disease her mom had. And Sue is left wondering if maybe her mother was right about Jeremy. Get a clue, Sue.

Sue finally emerges from her den of misery to swim some vigorous, crazed laps while Enid and Liz look on in concern. Enid wonders aloud if Jessica and Jeremy might elope and Liz doesn’t think her sister would do something like that. (Liz is, however, alarmed because she initially thought Enid was going to suggest that they might do something else which I assume is sex.) The list of things Liz doesn’t think her sister would do just keeps on growing!

Jessica drives out to the Beach Cafe to meet with Jeremy in the back of the building so they can drive out to another restaurant (an unnamed Mexican place “up the coast”) where no one will see them. Jeremy acts like a weirdo, then abruptly whips out the sapphire and diamond ring Jessica coveted in the last few books and asks Jessica to marry him. She accepts (just in case you doubted she would). The back of the book told us this was coming as well, by the way. He tells her they’ll have to wait till she’s 18, but they’ll make it work. Then he drops the bomb that he has to leave Sweet Valley to work for Project Nature in Costa Rica for several weeks. Jess whines about it until he explains that he has to do it in order to help him get approved for a transfer to Project Nature’s L.A. office. He wants Jessica to keep their engagement a secret at least until he gets back. Jessica reluctantly agrees, but you know her big mouth ain’t gonna stay shut for long.

Jessica wants to drive Jeremy to the airport the next morning, but he doesn’t like that idea at all. He finally relents, but then insists she not watch him get on the plane at his gate, but just walk away. They have a huge back-and-forth about it before he finally gets his way. Gee, I wonder what his problem was. And, Jessica wants to write him in Costa Rica, but Jeremy is all like, “Uh … what, you actually wanna write me? Well I don’t have my address, hur dur.” Several days later, Jess finally has his address because I guess he sent her a postcard with it, and he gave her a phone number she can call. But each time she does call, Jeremy’s “roommate” Juan answers and says Jeremy is not in, then Jeremy calls Jessica right back. Is there a summer camp color war going on because there are a ton of red flags, all of which Jessica remains oblivious to because she’s an insufferable moron. Her parents are probably ready to ship her off to Abu Dhabi at this point.

Meanwhile, a special letter comes by certified mail for Alice, which explains some more terms of Sue’s mom’s will. Alice takes Sue into the family room to explain. So, now that Sue isn’t marrying Jeremy, she’s entitled to her mom’s fortune, but only if she stay away from Jeremy for a full two months. Only two months? Uh, okay? If Sue fails to stay away from Jeremy, or if she goes on to marry him, then Alice Wakefield gets all the money (as opposed to Sue’s stepfather). What the fuck? Sue insists she doesn’t care about the money anyway. Liz eavesdrops on the conversation and resolves to help Sue figure out the best ways to use her new fortune; give me a fucking break. Anyway, this totally realistic scenario makes it kind of clear to me that Sue and Jeremy are just conniving to make sure they get Sue’s dead mom’s fortune one way or the other. Sue is probably a new lite version of Margo.

So, two weeks go by from the night Jeremy proposed, and then Jessica tells Lila about her engagement, who lets it slip to Caroline, who wastes no time in making sure the whole school knows. Liz is shocked (of course) and hopes her parents won’t find out, because they’ve now decided it’s okay for Jessica to come home. You see, Sue has started seeing a psychiatrist and taking tranquilizers and sleeping pills, so she’s good now! Jessica comes home in order to promptly fuck all that up. Everyone is having a nice family dinner when the topic of Jeremy comes up. Jessica does a non-apology to Sue and insists she is going to continue to see Jeremy against her parents’ protests. Then Jessica casually drops the bomb that she and Jeremy are engaged. The Wakefield ‘rents flip out and her parents begin their renewed threats about sending Jessica to the Milford Academy for Girls and Alice has to leave the table in disgust. Sue finds Jessica in the kitchen to reassure her that she wishes her and Jeremy the best, hopefully while prepping some arsenic to slip in Jess’ dessert. Since this is Sweet Valley High, I’m pretty sure the book is actually moving in that direction.

In an effort to get through to Jessica, Liz stupidly tells her all about Sue’s money situation and the terms of the will, thinking that will convince her that Jeremy is a gold-digger. Instead Jessica makes sure to call Jeremy (or his roommate, anyway) and tell him all about it. The book then cuts to a scene of Jeremy hanging out by himself, smoking a cigarette so we know he’s evil, and creepily looking at framed photos of Sue and Jessica. Juan calls to tell him that he got a call from “that girl” again so he can call her back. Play on, playa.

One morning, Sue doesn’t come down to breakfast and the whole Wakefield family (minus Steven, who is mercifully actually at school on a regular basis, now that he’s dating an actual college student) rush upstairs to check on her and find her door locked. Jessica picks the lock before Ned can break the door down and they find Sue lying unresponsive in bed with an empty bottle of pills on the floor next to a suicide note. Don’t worry, Sue didn’t actually take enough pills to do any serious damage! And don’t worry, when she comes home from the hospital everyone basically just gets her to “rest” and acts like this isn’t a big deal at all. Sue’s stepfather is contacted, but he doesn’t see a reason to come to California to look after her, raising Liz’s ire. Hmmm, it’s almost like he’s not really her stepdad or something. Then we get a scene where Sue nonchalantly checks the mail, reads a postcard for Jessica from Costa Rica with amusement, and then grabs her own mysterious letter from California to furtively bring up to her room. Let me also mention we get a new scene of Jeremy on the beach somewhere, relaxing in the sun and thinking about how it won’t be long before he can be with the one he loves. GEE I WONDER WHAT’S GOING ON HERE.

Jeremy keeps having to extend his stay in “Costa Rica” for whatever bullshit reason, and then he calls Jessica one night to tell her that Project Nature is going to have a Halloween party at a cabin in the woods and he will be home for it. Haha, awesome. He wants Jessica to come and bring all her little teenaged friends for him and his grown folk friends to prey on, no doubt. Jessica is pissed because she thinks that means she has to wait until Halloween to see Jeremy, but she also wastes no time in telling Amy and getting her to help spread the word. Jessica also updates Amy that she had an interview with the Milford Academy lady and has been accepted into the school. But Sue is encouraging Ned and Alice not to send Jessica away just yet because she’s coming to terms with what happened … even though she JUST TRIED TO KILL HERSELF. I really think this ghost writer wrote this shit up like this on purpose and was laughing all the way. Jessica is also annoyed because Sue is always in the way, helping with dinner, picking up the phone as soon as it rings, grabbing the mail before anyone else can …

Sue gets a mysterious phone call while she lays out by the pool. We’re not supposed to know who it is, but I mean, come on, it’s obviously from Jeremy. We learn she’s waiting “two more weeks” for something, and that she’s been meeting with the caller secretly. She also reassures the caller that she “put a stop” to something (which sounds like the boarding school plan, obvs), and that she won’t be doing another overdose, don’t worry, because it was a drag last time.

Liz and Sue go out to breakfast, where Sue seems to be miraculously recovering from her suicide attempt just a couple weeks before. Sue starts babbling about maybe asking a guy she knows at work out on a date when she gets back to New York, and Liz starts doing what she does best, judging her. Then Sue says she’s happy to be getting her mother’s money after all and she’s looking into donating to charities, and maybe taking a trip to Europe. Liz starts fretting about Sue traveling with her blood disorder and Sue is all confused, then confesses that she made up having inherited the condition from her mom. She claims she did it because she could see that Jeremy was falling for Jessica and she thought she could get him to go through with the wedding if he thought she was dying. Liz is stunned, but tells Sue she forgives her because Liz hasn’t encountered enough psycho bitches in this series yet to understand that Sue is definitely one of them.

Amy and Winston and some other kids are involved in some artsy video club, and doing these cutting edge projects about Sweet Valley. Amy films Jessica looking mysterious on a pier for her video. Then the video club holds a screening of the students’ films, and when they play Winston’s, there’s a long scene of a couple on the beach at Moon Beach (where Jeremy and Sue’s failed wedding was held) that looks just like … Jeremy and Sue. They’re meeting up and making out, and when they realize they’re being filmed they run off. It turns out it was filmed very recently, so Jessica freaks out a little and tries to tell herself that it can’t possibly be the two of them.

Two days before the Halloween party, Jeremy is finally back in town (not that he actually left). He and Jessica are planning to formally announce their engagement at the upcoming Project Nature Halloween party. By the way, Jessica just let Jeremy pick out their costumes so she has no idea what they’re going as. They reunite at the beach and Jessica is stunned when, while catching up on gossip, Jeremy asks how Sue is doing since her suicide attempt. Jessica is sure she didn’t mention it to him and she doesn’t know how he would know otherwise. Jeremy insists she did mention it and Jessica grabs a shovel to add this warning sign to the others in the pit.

Sue surprises Liz by announcing she is also going to the Project Nature Halloween party.  She doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her. She’s going to dress as a witch while Liz plans to go as a cat. Then Liz thinks she sees a bruise underneath Sue’s collar and starts worrying that Sue might have hurt herself. I refuse to believe that Liz is so much of a goody-goody that she doesn’t know what a hickey is, what with all that rolling around she does with Todd (and whoever she feels like messing with behind Todd’s back), so that helps confirm that she’s the second dullest crayon in the box after Jessica … in this book anyway. They tend to switch it up.

The night of the fabled Halloween party FINALLY fuckin’ arrives. Jessica’s parents have basically vanished from sight at this point, in case you were wondering. Jessica and Jeremy go to the party as Jasmine and Aladdin, from the Disney movie. How precious. After a little bit of dancing, Jeremy disappears to get Jessica a drink. Yeah, okay. Ten minutes later, Jessica gets tired of waiting on him, and suspicious because Sue is also missing, and decides to take a walk in the woods to clear her head. This book is hilarious. She hears the sounds of making out nearby, and whaddya know! She catches Jeremy tonguing Sue up against a tree. We didn’t see that coming by the cover, or the back of the book, or anything like that, and I really don’t know why they thought people wanted to read a whole book that had the ending already spoiled. Anyway, the two realize they’re caught and make a big production out of telling Jessica that they “weren’t doing anything.” Jessica is dumb enough that it just might work, so can’t blame ’em for trying. Jessica runs away, finds Liz, and gets her to drive her home as Todd stands by threatening to go do a Todd punch. Jeremy chases after the twins as they drive away, trying to explain, and Liz threatens to commit vehicular manslaughter with her Jeep, because she has good practice at that you know. I swear to God this ghost writer is in on the joke and I am loving it.

At home, Liz is trying to comfort Jess with hot chocolate and popcorn when Jeremy knocks on the door. Jessica thinks about forgiving him for a hot second, and then he sadly tells them that Sue has gone missing. Who cares? Gag me with a bobbed apple.

The sub-plots: Lila is still seeing Robby Goodman, the poor artist who faked being rich to impress her (and to whom she then faked being poor to test his love). Now, Robby is working on an upcoming art show, at which he will feature Lila’s portrait, but Lila is convinced the contract he signed for the show is a bad deal and thinks Robby needs more business sense in order to be a successful artist. She secretly signs Robby up for a college business class at SVU behind his back and pays for everything (and it’s non-refundable), because she thinks when he finds out he’ll just do what she wants. When Robby gets the registration notice in the mail and realizes what she did, he’s upset with her for trying to control his life and they have a spat at the Dairi Burger. They then ignore each other for the next few weeks which is real mature. Robby finally shows up at Lila’s house and begs forgiveness and they go down to her rec room and roll around on the couch. Then Robby confesses that he did end up going to the business class. What’s more, it lead him to take an advanced drawing course as well. Lila is delighted beyond belief until Robby mentions that he has to sketch nude models in the drawing class, including women. She gets jealous and demands he drop the class. He refuses and storms out of Fowler Crest. How much silly drama can this damn couple have? Are they trying to give Todd and Liz a run for their money or what? Lila talks to Jessica, who suggests they go check out Robby’s drawing class to see how professional everything really is. She also wants to creep on the nude male models. Later on we learn that Jessica also suggested Lila tell Robby to draw her naked instead, and Lila got mad and threw her hot dog bun at her. Lila goes over to the cottage Robby shares with his dad to apologize, and they kiss and make up. Robby reveals he already made Lila’s Halloween costume for her, which is kind of ironic since as far as I know she didn’t ask him to and he sure didn’t like her making decisions for him, but what the F ever. It turns out the costume is the Mona Lisa, or as Robby puts it, the “Mona Lila.” It’s a hit. Robby goes as Dracula and runs around all night pretending to bite Lila’s neck.

A second sub-plot has to do with … mathematics. Liz goes to trig class where she’s disgusted that all the boys take turns shouting out the answers before anyone else has a chance to contribute. One of the boys eagerly showing off his knowledge is that dummy Ken Matthews. Another is famous Betsy-Martin-bangin’ bad boy (and racist, but they want us to forget that part), Charlie Cashman. Last I checked neither of those guys gave two shits about doing well in school so I’m wondering who the hell approved this scene. Then there’s a shy new character named Molly Adams – not to be confused with Molly Hecht from the old Regina’s death arc – who gets called on to answer when the teacher gets fed up with the boys hollering out answers. Molly shyly does her best, but gets it wrong and everyone acts like that’s hilarious and she is humiliated. I’m trying to reconcile this scene with my own high school experience and having a really hard time. I think I went to a kinda crappy school, but pretty much nobody gave a shit about math class, especially jocks and bad boys like Ken and Charlie. Anyway! The whole purpose of this scene is to introduce us to our next sub-plot. Principal “Chrome Dome” Cooper calls a special assembly and announces that SVH will be taking part in a special program, by a group of researchers called Educom, called “Go Math” (Girls Only Math) that aims to address the issue that girls are apparently falling behind boys in high school when it comes to math prowess. As a result, certain female students at SVH have been selected to spend a few weeks taking special female-only math classes and have the results tracked. There will also be some male-only classes, and everyone else will stay in the same classes they always had. Although it’s clearly stated it’s for research into the issue and how to find solutions, Liz is outraged immediately. She starts carrying on about sexism and plans to expose and stop the program via her Oracle articles before she’s even heard more than three statements about it. A great journalist, this one. Then she actually starts taking the class (taught by a man, natch!) and sees the effect upon her fellow female students when they can learn without the distraction of the boys, and how they are starting to speak up more. E.g., Molly Adams feels comfortable talking now and is learning faster, Maria gets an answer wrong and nobody laughs or makes her feel bad, etc. Everyone’s grades start rising and Liz realizes she loves math. The book tells us that Liz’s own math grade went up from a B+ to an A and I’m mainly just shocked she didn’t already have an A. Liz starts writing articles praising the classes and they get picked up by the Sweet Valley News. Gag me with a math book.

Yet another effing sub-plot is about Winston and Todd getting new haircuts. Their regular barber is apparently a guy named Rigoberto, who has a stereotypical Italian accent and can’t keep Winston’s name straight. For some reason, Rigoberto and company get up to mischief and decide they want to give Winston and Todd exciting new hairdos. The end result is that Todd’s hair looks something like this:

Or at least that’s the way I’m reading it. Since this story is set in 1994, maybe they meant more like this:

Meanwhile, Winston’s comes out looking like this:

Winston is as sad about his new ‘do as the guy in the pic above, but Todd loves his. To make matters worse, it encourages Todd to try and grow a mustache. All his dumbass friends egg him on and he starts acting more macho. Liz hates the whole thing, so Alice reassures her with a story about how Ned once grew a soul patch and she had to just wait for him to come to his senses. There’s a scene where Todd keeps trying to make out with Liz and is totally oblivious as to why she’s not into having him rub his fuzzy mustache all over her. Meanwhile, Winston keeps going back to the barber to have his hair “fixed” and ends up sporting a crew cut, and then finally, no hair at all. I don’t understand why he didn’t just let the shit grow out, other than this storyline was supposed to be comedy gold as far as Bantam Books was concerned. Liz stays silent about her dislike of Todd’s new look for many weeks, glaring at him while he twirls the ends of his greasy pornstache around his fingers, until he finally gets mad at her sullen behavior, and then they don’t speak for another week or two. God, it’s so weird having this book last for two months. A couple nights before the Halloween party, when Liz and Sue are about to go see a movie, Todd shows up (in a backwards baseball cap) and confronts Liz for acting like a “witch” and she blows up about how hideous he looks. I mean, she really goes off. She tells him he looks like he’s been out stealing cars and belongs in a juvenile delinquent hall or something. LOL! In return, he yells that all the guys think it’s “totally radical.” After a huge fight, they break up and he leaves. On the night of the party, dressed as a cat and a wizard, Todd shows up with the mustache shaved off, and they make up. Gag me with a container of beard balm. Winston, meanwhile, takes advantage of his new bald look to attend the party as Captain Picard from Star Trek while Maria dresses as a Vulcan.

Other stuff: Robby makes a joke about how Lila and Jessica are “jailbait” for him and Jeremy.

Lots of makeout scenes in this book and nearly every one makes sure to include a mention of making sure parents don’t walk in!

Lila’s mom offers Lila and Robby some “chocolate mousse” if they want a “snack.”

There’s a new “health food” restaurant in town called Alfalfa’s, which basically sounds like it just doesn’t serve meat. The fact that this was supposed to be edgy or something back then is a little mind-blowing to me today. I try not to go out of my way to “feel old” just because things change or progress, but I did feel a bit ancient when I read about Liz explaining to Todd how you can make imitation meat with tofu and his mind was blown (and disgusted, because he’s supposed to be going out of his way to act like an alpha-male in this book or something?).

Jessica is awed by a newspaper ad for platform shoes.

Whenever the ghost writer lets us see inside Jessica’s head, they make clear that she is truly just as selfish and loony as she seems on the outside. To me this stands out because typically, we’re supposed to see that Jessica has heart or has some (contrived) sad-sap reasons for her loony behavior or is just trying to have fun and got carried away. I feel like this ghost writer isn’t even here for it; they just know that Jess is a mess, period.

Jessica looks at a pier down the beach and thinks about how once, she and some other boyfriend she can’t remember fell off of it. Is this referencing a scene from earlier in the series? The only thing I can think of is when Margo pushed James off the pier to his death in the Evil Twin mini-series. Again, I feel like the ghost writer did this on purpose!

Lila mentions another past event to Jessica, in which Sam’s parents were out of town and Jessica went over to his place to “stay late” but didn’t want her parents to know she was over there getting dicked down, so she lied and told them she was at Lila’s. Then Prince Albert got loose (I’m referring to the dog, not Sam’s dick) and Alice had to call Lila’s house to see if Jessica had him with her (like Lila would allow a dog to come to her house). And Lila had to say that Jessica was in the shower and then call Jessica at Sam’s to call her mom right back. I think this is another new scenario that they inserted to try and make the book seem more “hot” because I don’t quite remember this one either, although I guess it could’ve been in one of the early Jess/Sam books where they were doing a lot of making out and worried they might end up having sex by mistake or something.

One of the girls in Elizabeth’s Go Math class is Grace Oliver. I’m quite certain this is the first time I have seen mention of Grace Oliver in this series. The last time I saw her mentioned was in Sweet Valley Twins in a Super Edition. Random!

Robby thinking about his fight with Lila: “Dammit, he loved her.” A cuss word! Awwwww I’m tellinnnnnn.

Quote from Liz that made me laugh: “I’m not saying he’s a gold-digger.”

Robby and Lila making out: “Robby kissed her face, her hair, anywhere he could reach.”

Valley Mall has a smoothie shop called Smootharama and a hot dog place called the Dog House.

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” -Lila, referring to what a dumbass Jessica is about Jeremy’s obvious playa ways

Liz subscribes to a computer magazine. The hell? Jessica, more characteristically, subscribes to a Hollywood gossip rag.

Jessica suddenly refers to Milford school as Milford Military Academy. That’s the first and only time it’s referred to as a military school, so I can’t tell if she’s making a joke or if somebody fucked up somewhere or if I’m just really dense and didn’t catch on that it wasn’t “just” a boarding school.

Sue and Liz go see a British comedy flick called Happiness is a Warm Scone.

The Droids play the costume party, under the moniker “The Nontoxic Avengers.” Dana Larson is on the mic as a mummy.

After Sue and Jeremy are caught smoochin’, Liz notes that the two month stipulation in Sue’s mom’s will hasn’t been met yet. So I guess the Wakefields are rich now? If that whole thing isn’t fake as hell anyway. The Wakefield parents are stupid enough to leave their children behind for days to meet with some fake lawyer while Margo butchers them, so the “official documents” Alice got in the mail was probably just something Sue made up with letters cut out of the newspaper and mimeographed. “AL ICE U get MONEY If SuE leave JEreMY Alone! FOR 2 M0NthS. Signed, A LAWyer”

Not enough Halloween in this book! Fuck these people for giving me hope! They have costume parties every other week in this damn series; you didn’t have to float Halloween over my head! I would’ve at least had Jessica throw a burning jack o’ lantern at the cheating couple, or try to drown Sue in a vat of bobbing apples! It’s the least you can do people!

In the back of the book: The same old ads for the same old SVH books. No new ads or anything fun. I’m always sad about this because when I was young, the back-of-the-book ads were one of my favorite things about the paperbacks I read. I even tore out the coupon and sent away for some shit a couple of times!

Coming up next: Sue is missing, and somebody’s making a death threat! I’m sure when I read the back of the next book,  it will just summarize the whole plot for me, so at least I probably don’t have to actually read it!