* Photo credit to The Closet *
Do we have a falsely titled SVH novel on our hands here? I was under the impression that “double jeopardy” was attempting to charge someone for the same crime twice. That doesn’t happen in this.
Liz and Jess get summer gigs interning at the Sweet Valley News, where Jess is hot for twenty-two-year-old reporter/mystery writer Seth Miller. (BTW: He’s gorgeous! Are you surprised?) She tries to get his attention by giving him exciting but completely untrue tips for articles, and it really makes one’s butt cringe to read about how she comes seriously close to fucking up his entire career just because she’s got a bit of a crush, but whatever: She’s one of the heroes, guys! We root for her!
As for Liz’s love life, her stud Jeffrey French is away for the summer, and Jess can’t bear to see her sister pine and be in a serious relationship. So she types up a psychotic love letter to Liz and signs it from Adam Maitland. Adam is Steven’s friend who has come to stay with the Wakefields for the summer while working on his own law internship. He’s known Liz for about a day and is already engaged to some chick named Laurie Hamilton, but of course Liz believes that the letter is real. Why? It it because everyone falls in love with someone about as often as they blink? Or because she’s a Wakefield and who could resist? Do we need to choose between the two?
But back to Jess. She feeds Seth some more bull shit that he believes and their editor nearly fires them both, but then Jess turns on the waterworks and Seth gets to keep his job. Jess gets to demoted to working on the newspaper database and acts like Seth should be grateful for her saving his ass (she even suggest he take her out to dinner in his appreciation), but he’s all, “Cheeyeahh right!” Jess slaves and slaves at her new position and is the last to leave the office—just in time to see some blonde guy (BTW: He’s gorgeous! Are you surprised?) hauling a dead chick’s body out of his white Trans Am in the parking garage. She’s so upset she’s ready to puke and calls Seth, and he comes to her rescue but it’s clear he’s only humoring her ass. Even her family thinks she’s full of crap—until the cops call to tell them that Adam is being charged with first-degree murder after the strangled body of Laurie Hamilton was found in his trunk. Eep! This is heavy shit, man.
There’s all this evidence against Adam and it’s looking pretty grim. Jessica lures Seth into paying attention to her by recruiting him to work with her on the case. Meanwhile, Liz shows “Adam’s letter” to her dad and that hoopla is all over the papers, but then Jess just goes to the cops and says that it was really her who wrote it, and they’re like, “Oh, okay.” So it really goes nowhere. Excuse me, but I watch L&O SVU and I’m pretty sure that the judicial system would’ve ripped Jess a new one and in no way would Jess have been considered a credible witness and Adam Maitland would probably rot in jail for a billion years. But this is Sweet Valley, where goodness, kindness, and honesty personified are in abundance.
Jess and Seth go to visit Adam in the slammer to rile him up, and Adam talks about some nut named Tom Winslow who wanted Laurie back in the day but she dumped him for Adam. Then the newspaper has an annual office party, and while Jess goes to the police station to identify a police drawing of Tom Winslow, Liz takes the Fiat to the party against her parents’ wishes (they don’t want her zipping around alone because they care about her safety for once). She’s like, “OMG, if I don’t go, it’ll look bad to my boss!” even though the killer knows what the twins are driving and just—oh, God, Liz is so profoundly stupid, it hurts.
Jess somehow makes it to the party before Liz, and who should be there but Tom Winslow and his Trans Am! Jess is about shitting her pants and has Seth and Steven calling the cops left and right, but Tom leaves the party and instead meets up with Liz in the garage. He busts up the Fiat with a lead pipe that had been conveniently stranded on the ground and then smashes her beautiful little blonde head off the top of the car, knocking her out. See what happens when you disobey Ned and Alive, Liz? This is like a cautionary tale for moronic teens.
Jess appears just in time to scoop up a random tire iron (WTF—this garage is like a Clue board) and bonk Tom on the head. But she doesn’t keep bonking him until he’s unconscious, so of course Tom lunges for them just as Seth (leading the army of policemen) shows up. Tom gets arrested, Liz gets a Band-aid on her boo-boo’d head, Seth writes the story of the century, and Adam doesn’t sue Jess for being a libelous bitch so Jess gets off scot-free as usual. And Ned and Alice Wakefield show up (after hanging out with some neighbors) and they’re all, “Oh gee whilkers, what happened?” Please. Don’t pretend you care!
Other Notes:
- Seth publishes his mysteries under the pseudonym Lester Ames. Isn’t a pen name usually supposed to be cooler than your real one?
- Sweet Valley is crawling with lawyers. But the cops say that there hasn’t ever been a murder in the town before Laurie Hamilton. Seriously? They all just happen the moment the twins hit sixteen and only concern in connection with them?
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