Read An Excerpt From ‘The Alibi Club’ by Carrie Talick

A blind date turns to calamity in this charming story that’s Materialists meets Anxious People.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Alibi Club by Carrie Talick, which releases on September 29th 2026.

Single, female, forty-one. Forensic psychologist Jamie Frisco’s bio reads more like victim data than stellar online dating fodder, and she’s on the verge of becoming a forever-spinster. Then her mother threatens to leave her out of her will unless Jamie brings a suitable date to her wedding. Enter matchmaker Lorna Gray, who invites Jamie to a blind date night—Dinner for Six.

Recently paroled antiquities thief Cliff Weston is desperate to change but needs a loan to start his new security business. Looking to schmooze his benefactor by passing as a family man, he accepts Lorna Gray’s invitation to Dinner for Six.

As Dinner for Six commences, Jamie, Cliff and four other unlikely singles are digging into their main course when bombs knock out the power, throwing everything into chaos.

After the smoke clears, a SWAT team arrives and a lockdown ensues, trapping them together. As the night goes on, sparks fly between Cliff and Jamie. Meanwhile, the biggest heist in Manhattan Beach history goes down, and someone at the table might be behind it all.

A note from the author: If you’ve ever had the misfortune of entering the murky waters of online dating in your 40s (or older) you inevitably start boiling people down to three-word-descriptors as you endlessly swipe right; Short, funny, from Colorado, or Redhead, marathon runner, slightly insane, or Brawny, airplane mechanic, owns a sword.

What sounds like fun at first becomes a monotonous stream of bathroom selfies, discerning if one’s hobbies incline them to serial killing, and taking part in The Ghosting Olympics. It’s bleak out there online. Enter the concept for my latest novel The Alibi Club, where six aging singles take a different approach to finding love; they put their fate into the hands of a matchmaker whose gift may be heaven sent but whose group blind date setup ends in total calamity as the biggest heist in Manhattan Beach goes down and one of the guests at the table may be responsible for it all. In the midst of all the chaos, does love stand a chance?