title: Claire and Present Danger
author:  Gillian Roberts 
description: Anthony Award winner Roberts offers another charming and amusing cozy, the 11th to feature Philadelphia high school teacher and part-time sleuth Amanda Pepper (after 2000's Helen Hath No Fury). Amanda and her ex-cop lover, C.K. Mackenzie, who's supplementing their meager income by working as a PI while he completes a Ph.D. in criminology, are finally engaged. C.K. asks Amanda to interview a new client, Claire Fairchild, who wants her prospective daughter-in-law, Emmie Cade, investigated because "I don't know who she is." Amanda agrees to take the assignment with some misgivings, since she herself is about to meet C.K.'s mother for the first time and sympathizes with Emmie. C.K., however, unearths a wealth of disconcerting information about Ms. Cade, whose friends and lovers have been felled by accidents, suicides and even murders. She's a dangerous woman-or is she? Then Mrs. Fairchild dies, officially of natural causes, and Emmie implores Amanda to discover why her life is such a wreck. There's a delightfully worked out parallel between a troubled student in Amanda's class and the even more troubled Emmie. Subplots proliferate. By the time you've learned the solution, so much has occurred that you've lost sight of the problem and are left waiting for the next installment. They will wed, won't they? C.K. and Amanda could be the new Nick and Nora. <br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  Sometimes danger isn’t found on a battleground—it’s sitting at your front
  door.
  
  
    
  Nic Caldwell is back Stateside, working the job she was supposed to have
  before her most recent deployment, and living her best life at home. At least
  she thought she would be, except her PTSD is always in the background,
  dragging her back to her tour in Afghanistan. As she struggles to control her
  demons privately, her public life with Claire is almost picture perfect.
  However, a picture can’t show everything hiding just under the surface.  
    
  Claire Monroe has the love of her life back in one piece—almost. She’s trying
  to help Nic adjust to her new normal both physically and emotionally while
  also going back to school and raising their daughter, Grace. With all the
  difficulties Nic’s re-entry poses along with the new challenges of being an
  adult student, she wonders how she can guide them back to their old life while
  building a new one for herself.