* Photo credit to The Closet *
Jessica seems afraid that her boobs will be grabbed by the shadow puppeteer, but I’m more frightened by her shapeless T-shirt and her ghastly floral skirt.
BTW: Where is the murder in this book? Where is the line? If this series likes beating me over the head with its themes, I expect nothing but very explicit obviousness on the covers.
For cryin’ out loud—Liz and Jess are STILL freaking interns at the goddamn Sweet Valley News, and somehow it’s only the second week of their internship—so all that’s happened before occurred in the course of one week? Actually, a ludicrous timeline is about par for course. But for some reason, the book acts like the twins haven’t been there for four books already, and just sort of writes over all that happened. No matter how liberal the timeline, but there’s no excuse for this. Argh! I’m on like, page two.
The book opens up almost verbatim to the first thriller, Double Jeopardy: Liz raving about how lucky they are to have scored internships and Jess swooning over someone hot at the office. Someone give me strength. I’m convinced they recycled the same intro but took out Seth Miller’s name and replaced it with “Bill Anderson,” their boss. (But don’t worry—Seth’s still around! Although now he has a suspicious amount of money. Hmm….)
Anyway, the story: The Western Building, where the paper’s offices reside, is having problems with the phones because Lila Fowler’s dad is building a skyscraper or something next door (FOWLER TOWER!), and Jess is beside herself with glee because all she has to do is pick up the phone and eavesdrop on all sorts of juicy conversations, such as the one during which “Greenback” chats to “Rock” about throwing bodies in the sea in between making deliveries. If that wasn’t ominous enough, Jess really begins to freak out when the body of a seventeen-year-old, runaway coke addict washes up on the beach! Don’t worry, Jess: Nothing that ever happens to you causes lasting emotional damage, so why should this? In between freaking out about dead teens, Jess still manages to go on a date with Ben Donovan, the totally hot accountant in the building across from her.
Eventually, Jess goes to the cops with what she knows and chats with Detective Jason, who is working on the case all by his lonesome and swears Jess to absolute secrecy. Shady! Talk about a time to get a second opinion. Then Jess starts being followed and getting hang-up phone calls, and she overhears Greenback talking about his “buddy at the police station,” a “special undercover cop” and a “nosy girl.” A nosy girl? Whomever could they mean? Jess starts doubting that she can trust Detective Jason and withholds information from “the bad cop.” In fact, she begins to doubt everyone except Liz, and the girls don’t go to other policeman or even their parents, because Jessica knows that if Ned and Alice knew, “They probably wouldn’t let me leave the house. I don’t want to be treated like a prisoner.” Girls, have you forgotten that they’re vaguely aware that you’re alive half the time?
After gathering some evidence (e.g., he has money now! And he makes a lot of phone calls!), Jess thinks that Seth Miller, the foxy but dorky reporter who writes mysteries in his spare time, is the drug kingpin. She doesn’t know who tell about him, so she confides in Bill Anderson, their boss. Huh? Bill commends Jess for her genius and tells her to swing by the office late at night so they can go to the police station together, alone. Jess is a total moron. Meanwhile, Liz has a chat with Seth and he tells her that he’s convinced that—gasp!—Bill Anderson is somehow involved in this teen-killing drug scheme.
Liz calls the cops and gets Detective Jason, who’s like, “We haven’t received a call from [Jessica] this evening reporting any threat to her well-being,” so thus he doesn’t care. No wonder no one in Sweet Valley goes to the cops during troubled times. Liz and Seth hurry over to the Western Building that night just as drug lord Bill Anderson, coked out of his mind, is about to fling Jess off the rooftop, but they bump into Ben Donovan—the undercover cop! Everyone convenes on the roof, where a homoerotic struggle takes place:
Locked in a deadly embrace, Bill and Ben wrestled furiously. The two men rolled over and over; at one point, it looked as if Ben would overcome Bill, but then Bill would thrust Ben from him and regain the advantage. Seth hovered over them, looking for a chance to help.
LOL @ Seth. But then Bill trips over the roof’s edge and plunges to his doom. Because doing coke = death, always, no matter what. The girls get their picture on the front page of the paper (please), and we find out that Seth is rolling in the dough because his mysteries are selling like hotcakes. (Where does that saying come from? Where do hotcakes sell well?)
Other Notes:
- I both thrill and cringe whenever wholesome SVH does a storyline involving drugs; it gets preachy, like it’s the worst thing a teenager can do and Jessica and Elizabeth are so smart and cool for never doing anything of the sort.
- “A violent murder had taken place, right there in the Sweet Valley area. This kind of story was rare.” Really? I thought it was the Hellmouth for teens. No wonder everyone is so desperate to be in with the Wakefields—if you’re not a main or supporting character, your chances of dying are pretty damn high.
- Where the Christ are Ned and Alice while all this is going on? Leading yet another meeting of Crappy Parenting Anonymous?
- So what’s the moral of this story? If you’re doing something bratty and annoying, like obsessively eavesdropping, keep at it, because in the end it could save the day? I hate you, Sweet Valley High.
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