Inept

Re: Cha Cha Cha by Jane Heller

To her utter surprise Alison finds that she is the main suspect in Melanie Moloney’s murder despite the fact that she is innocent.

The police base this on the fact that they found powder on Melanie’s desk and thought it was cocaine. So they think Alison has a cocaine habit and that Melanie confronted Alison with this information, so Alison had to kill her to shut her up.

Wrong. The police never tested the powder to see what it was (it's not cocaine).

Also someone has planted a real bag of cocaine in Alison’s refrigerator and have tipped the police off about it. So one of the officers tricks her into opening her refrigerator by asking for a glass of cold milk. Alison’s attorney has a field day with that.

The police in this novel are extremely incompetent and inept. Not unlike many novels about amateur sleuths!