There's a lot going on in this book #12 in the Mystery Club series. Several unrelated mysteries- or are they? The plot is really great. I would have given it 5 stars except that it was almost bizarre the way that one character acted, and it took the Mystery Club girls- Tracy, Holly, and Belinda, who are usually very astute- a while to figure it out.
Holly wrote to her favorite mystery author, P.J. Benson, awhile ago. She's thrilled when the author contacts her and agrees to an interview. But she not only turns out to look completely unlike her photo on the book jackets, but she is nervous and furtive and runs away every time she agrees to meet Holly. Meanwhile, Holly is thrilled when a radio interviewer named Aimsley James allows her to watch him interview subjects. Holly wants to be a journalist someday. But then James starts showing up everywhere. And Tracy goes to a new gym where she has won a membership. There's a mean ungainly man there and every encounter with him hints at mystery. And then there's the horse doping so that a horse favorite can't enter a race. Belinda is helping out at that stables. When they think they have it all worked out, the Mystery Club takes their theory to the police- who don't believe them. So, as usual, they have to solve it by themselves. And of course, they do.