Plain Brown Wrapper — Karen Grigsby Bates

Who killed Ev and why? The three most likely suspects are Ev's competitors -- publishers of the country's other popular black magazines who all had plenty of good reasons to make sure Ev never received his Journalist of the Year award.

With the help of Paul Butler, a fellow journalist and an old friend, Alex tries to untangle the circumstances that led to Ev Carson's death. Their investigative trail will carry them from the West Coast to the East, to D.C., New York, and the social whirl of Martha's Vineyard as the summer season reaches its peak. In the middle of dissed colleagues, dumped girlfriends, disgruntled ex-employees, and the legions of enemies Ev managed to accumulate before he died, Alex Powell realizes that before everything is over Everett Carson might not be the only person who ends up with a toe tag.