Combining the glamour of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA with the cutthroat energy of “The White Lotus,” Joan O’Leary’s A KILLER WEDDING announces a clever, creative new voice in crime fiction. Come for the decadent canapes, the bubbling champagne and a look at the bride’s couture dress. Stay for a Clue-like whodunit you won’t figure out until the book’s final page.

A junior reporter at Bespoke Weddings, the lead glamour magazine in the country, Christine Russo has climbed her way up the ladder reporting on weddings for her picky boss, Sandra. But her luck is about to change. She has earned an exclusive invitation to the larger-than-life wedding of Jane Murphy and Dr. Graham Ripton, heir to the world’s most iconic beauty empire, Glo. In fact, she was invited personally by the grandmother of the groom, Gloria Beaufort, the shrewd, calculating businesswoman who sits on the throne of the empire. Gloria has demanded that Christine report on the wedding alone. It’s the kind of job that could open not just doors but entire avenues for Christine, and she gets to stay at a gorgeous historic castle in Ireland to do it. It appears that her moment has arrived.

"Joan O’Leary weaves a crafty, clever whodunit that will have you guessing at every twist and turn. She doesn’t just delight in the deviously bad actions of her glitzy characters --- she revels in them..."

The Ripton family is never far from the press, and though Gloria is notoriously careful about her privacy, her loved ones are less so. Her only son, Trey, is known as “a chip off the wrong block.” His idiotic, careless moves as the CEO of Glo have earned him a reputation as a dunce at best and a greedy capitalist at worst. His wife, Clementine, is also an embarrassment. A sometimes poet and painter who lacks talent, she’s more likely to be seen hanging around the boardroom in a caftan than bringing in any serious revenue.

Their sons, Ben and Graham, are much sharper, but they bring their own scandals to the family. Ben, the company’s general counsel, is married to “It girl” Lyle, a talented woman who is slated to become Glo’s next CEO. But his drinking has posed problems for the family’s reputation. Graham, the Riptons’ golden egg, is marrying a plain Jane. It is only fitting that her name is Jane, and no one in the world can understand how she made one of the world’s most eligible bachelors fall in love and propose so quickly.

As Christine arrives at Ballymoon Castle, a serious-looking stone behemoth that sits above a glimmering lough bordered by verdant gardens, she meets Elliot, a famous event planner who has been at the helm of the Ripton family’s every event for the past decade --- and, more crucially, at Gloria’s beck and call. Elliot is quick to remind Christine that her reporting must be perfect, every detail accounted for and every description flattering.

Right from the start, it is clear that this is not the happy, loving family event that Christine is used to reporting. Everyone is on edge, and as they wait for their matriarch to arrive, Christine catches more than a few barbs and jabs at the woman who is paying for every last ivory napkin and stiletto champagne glass. But something else is simmering under the surface: Glo has been hit with a major class-action suit that accuses the beauty empire of putting profit over people. Their latest product, Glo Drops, is crafted with a cheap chemical that is known to cause infertility.

As CEO, Trey is the one most obviously in trouble, but Gloria knows that her idiot son could never pull off something so crafty. His sons, meanwhile, are wondering what his misstep means for them, their legacy and their inheritance. So the Riptons endure an uncomfortable welcome dinner that is abruptly interrupted by a rock thrown through the castle window. Scandal, it seems, has come for them.

But that rock is nothing compared to the next morning’s find: Gloria has been murdered in her bedroom, and --- with the savvy of a Kardashian --- the family decides to keep her death under wraps at least until the vows are said and the bride is kissed. But Christine is now complicit in the cover-up, her NDA barring her from seeking help, and then something occurs to her. In the “locked room” of the castle, pre-guest arrival, only one of the Riptons could have killed their controlling matriarch…and they all have motives.

As Christine attempts to write the article that will make her career, she also finds that she must tread carefully around the conniving, manipulative Riptons and their guests: Raquel, the bombshell actress who may or may not be having an affair with Trey; Maggie, the bride’s mother, who has her own seedy past; and even Father Kenneth, the family’s longtime priest, who seems to see right through Graham’s golden boy exterior. But to what?

Joan O’Leary weaves a crafty, clever whodunit that will have you guessing at every twist and turn. She doesn’t just delight in the deviously bad actions of her glitzy characters --- she revels in them, and her tongue-in-cheek approach to their wickedness will have even the most anti-capitalist reader basking in the glow. Although this is her first novel, O’Leary makes masterful use of alternate timelines and perspectives, fleshing out her wedding story with lots of pertinent flashbacks that reveal the dark histories of each of her characters.

Full of bubbling champagne, celebrity intrigue, and lots of excellent red herrings, A KILLER WEDDING is a remarkable debut, perfect for readers of Rachel Hawkins, Benjamin Stevenson and Liv Constantine.