The Master Plan - Carol Costa, Author

Carmen and Cathy both stared at Casey.  Finally Carmen spoke.  “What is going on in that devious mind of yours Casey?”  Casey laughed.  “Forget it.  It probably won’t work.”  “Let us be the judge of that,” Cathy told her.  “Okay.  We pool our money and one of us joins the country club.  Once she’s a member she starts socializing with the rich guys and snags herself a wealthy mate.  She can also bring her two friends to the club for some of the activities and introduce them to her husband’s rich friends.”  “That’s absolutely brilliant” Carmen exclaimed.  “Let’s do it.”  “Wait a minute,” Cathy said.  “Where are we going to
get twenty-five thousand dollars?”  “From your bank,”  Carmen answered.  “We’ll take out a loan and after we marry the rich guys they can pay it off for us.  Only I’m not the one who is going to join the club.  Casey has to do it.”  And that is exactly what the ‘three Cs’ (Carmen, Cathy and Casey) did.  They took out a loan to pay the application fee and Casey became the country club’s newest member.  

It didn’t take long for her to hook up with Anthony (Tony) Hunter while Carmen and Cathy both found catches for themselves.  It also wasn’t long before Tony asked Casey to run off to Vegas with him to be married, which she did.  But all good things must come to an end so after returning home, Casey decided to tell Tony about ‘The Master Plan,’ which is what the 3 Cs had named their plan.  While hoping for his understanding, Casey instead was asked to leave.  Casey gave Tony some time to calm down and then went back to the apartment in hopes of talking to him and making him understand.  What she found when she got to the apartment soon became her worse nightmare.  

Dana Sloan is an investigative reporter who seems to find herself mixed up in more than the usual ‘who’s ripping off the consumer’ investigations.  She seems to somehow stumble into a murder now and then.  In The Master Plan she ends up being involved in three murders with a friend, Judy, and a co-worker, Casey, being involved in two of them.  Her detective boyfriend Al Bruno is handling two of the cases and really doesn’t want Dana involved.  He has his own plans for Dana and they don’t include risking your life to complete an investigation.  His ideas for her are more on the line of her becoming a soccer/PTA mom.  

The biggest conflict in their relationship is when Dana steps into Bruno’s investigations or when Bruno withholds information Dana needs for her investigation and she is now involved in two.  From what Dana has learned, she has come to the conclusion that all three murders are related.  Bruno can’t see it.  He still feels that the wives of his 2 cases just might be guilty and since they don’t know each other, the cases have no connections.  

So… are they related?  Will Dana be able to solve one, two or all three without getting herself killed?  Will Casey and the 3Cs be able to pull off their little plan without being discovered?  These were questions I carried all the way to the end.  I usually have a list of my own suspects but with The Master Plan, I had none.  I was really surprised to find out who killed who and why.  I think you will too.