Twelve-year-old amateur detective Maxwell Parker suspects that her elderly new neighbor has committed murder. With the help of her best friend, Kenneth, Maxwell proceeds to investigate. Meanwhile, having just started junior high, Maxwell must deal with the possibility of losing her best friend to the popular girls, as well as the cost of fitting in.

Maxwell Parker is back...and this time, she's putting her observational skills to something truly useful: fixing people's love lives. Her brother's ex-girlfriend turned out to be a real dud, so when Maxwell meets the perfect potential sister-in-law, she can't resist the urge to get involved. Between trying to protect her best friend, Kenneth Newman, from the man-eating new girl and fending off advances from her very own would-be Romeo, Maxwell, the meddling matchmaker, has got her hands full.

"Hollywood's not a place, it's an idea," Mom used to say. Looking back, I don't know what she would know about that. She'd never held on to either a place or an idea long enough to do her or anyone else any good.So begins one of the stories in Letters From the Land of La, a collection of short stories from Josie Lynn. Mostly set in Southern California, although some of the letters hail from parts north, each tale features characters striving to find authenticity in an artificial world.