Keep your friends close

A self-celebratory party for the West Hollywood Moms' Club leads swiftly to "a real-life game of Clue that nobody said they wanted to play." Although two of their pampered number, Natasha and Colleen, are distinctly minor players, four members of "the six"--Brooke Lyons, Kiersten McCann, Whitney Gilmore, and Jade Porter--are about as tight as friends can be. They've lived in close proximity, confided in each other about their husbands (along with Brooke's wife, attorney Abby Blackman), and gone through pregnancy and childbirth in such lockstep fashion that Kiersten decides it's high time for them to enjoy a girl's night in at her place. The festivities end abruptly when Natasha finds Kiersten floating in her pool, bashed to death, as an autopsy will show, before she hit the water. Most of her surviving friends don't spend long wondering whodunit before telling Det. Perez of the Beverly Hills P.D. that it was probably Brooke, whose recent history of instability is promptly amped up when Abby, who's found another woman, decides that she's too dangerous to have custody of their son, Julian, and snatches the 6-month-old away. As Whitney, Kiersten's best friend since kindergarten, struggles to hide her husband Colin's gambling addiction, and Jade hides the news that her own husband, Ryan, has been laid off by DreamWorks, Berry digs deeper and deeper into this dysfunctional quasi-family until it becomes clear that these women are lying about everything--absolutely everything--to each other and themselves. Perfect reading for those who wonder: "If you couldn't trust your best friend, could you really trust anyone?" Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.