Ellen Byerrum

Designer Knockoff Ellen Byerrum

Fashion reporter and stylish sleuth Lacey Smithsonian returns in her second Crime of Fashion Mystery, as high crimes and haute couture heat up Washington, D. C.: "The City Fashion Forgot." Lacey tangles with a fabric of deceit and death when high fashion meets low dealings in unfashionable Washington. A missing intern's scandalous secret, a New York fashion dynasty's closetful of skeletons, a young fashion designer's unsolved disappearance in the 1940s, and a long-lost scrap of black market silk from World War Two: It's a pattern custom-tailored for murder. And what on earth does her beloved Aunt Mimi's old steamer trunk, full of memories, fashion memorabilia, and long-forgotten dress patterns have to do with that well-dressed body in the swamp? Lacey races to unravel the truth behind two disappearances sixty years apart -- and to unmask the killer behind a dress to die for. Lacey's Fashion Bite of the Day: "Uh oh! Shopping under the influence of temptation? Beware of chocolate highs, bogus bargains, frivolous friends, and impossible fantasies. Or are you really ready to jet off to Spain just because that slinky little dress whispers, 'Barcelona'?"