Remains to be Scene (Polly Pepper Mystery) - Tapa dura

Occasional sleuth and comedian from television's golden age, Polly Pepper joins the cast of the teen musical Detention Rules only to find murder written into the script when her rival, Sedra Stone, falls from a diving platform into an empty pool.

Polly Pepper is a living legend, straight from television's golden age, complete with the star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. With her brilliant comic timing, Polly could send audiences into tearful hysterics with even the lamest rubber chicken gag. But that was thirty years ago, and these days, it seems her only time in the spotlight is accepting some yes-your-career-is-over Lifetime Achievement Award. Really, would it kill someone to offer her a decent role? It kind of looks that way when the untimely death of her dear friend, Trixie Wilder, opens up a part in the blockbuster teen musical "Detention Rules"...but as a grandmother?! Although she's completely insulted, Polly knows she should audition, especially when she reads in Daily Variety about who else is being considered: Sedra Stone, her rival who stole Polly's second husband - and her third. When Sedra gets the role, Polly is incensed, but not for long. Because soon Sedra is dead after falling from a diving platform into an empty pool...After Polly joins the cast, she learns that many on the set of "Detention Rules" weren't upset to see Sedra die. In fact, the cast of suspects is longer than the waiting list for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. There's Dana Pointer, the nymphomaniac teen celebrity, who has her hormones set on Jack Wesley, the sexy singer-turned-bad-boy-actor. And it seems Jack was making some nightly career moves of his own with Sedra. Or how about Hollywood darling Missie Miller, a straight-A Harvard freshman living at home to care for her blind mother, who was overheard telling Sedra, "Drop dead, Palaeolithic relic" just an hour before she did exactly that. Now it's up to Polly, her son Tim, and their sassy maid Placenta to see to it that someone will be starring in a real-life drama, tentatively titled "Life Without Parole"...