[Jane Stuart and Winky 04] • Icing Ivy

Once Jane Stuart and Ivy Benson were best friends - until Ivy's daughter Marlene took a job as nanny to Jane's son and was later murdered. Now it's time for Jane and Ivy to heal past wounds and catch up on old times. The perfect opportunity presents itself at a week at the off-season mountain lodge where Jane has scheduled a fiction writers' retreat.

So much for best intentions. Ivy's brought Johnny, the new man in her life, who has eyes for one of Jane's students - a local waitress with little promise as a writer but a great future as a home wrecker. But Carla's not the only reason for Johnny's guest appearance. The handsome lothario is also a man on the run, and the Mt. Munsee Lodge is his perfect hideaway.

What Johnny's running from is soon catching up with all of them - and with a blizzard leaving them snowbound, there's little chance for escape. Especially for Ivy. Jane's discovered her old pal dead - stabbed with an ice pick - on a lonely mountain trail. Johnny's the likely suspect, except he's disappeared. And as far as Jane's concerned, he had no real motive to ice his latest flame. But one of her students apparently did.

As the melting ice gives way to startling clues, Jane and Winky's investigation leads them into Ivy's complicated past - and the deadly secrets of a writer who has the clever manipulations of the murder mystery down cold...