TRESSED TO KILL: A Southern Beauty Shop Mystery - Lila Dare

St Elizabeth, Georgia, offers charm, Southern hospitality---and, most recently, murder. Now, hairdresser Grace Terhune is ready to crack this case---before things get snarled beyond repair....

Everyone at Violetta's salon----including Grace Terhune and her mother, Violetta---has their scissors at the ready for the influx of St Elizabeth's high-society ladies. Of all the snobs getting their hair done for the town meeting, the worst is Constance DuBois, a woman heartless enough to ruin people's livelihoods on a whim. And after a tinting accident leaves her hair with orange stripes, Constance vows she'll close down Violetta's....

Hours after the threat, Grace and Violetta find Constance dead, and some---including the police---believe the mother-daughter duo did her in. Grace sets out to clear their names, but with an accusing special agent, her lecherous ex on the police force, and the distraught daughter of the deceased all working against them, Grace is up to her perfectly shaped eyebrows in trouble...

*************************

Books set in the South are among my favorites, be they Southern humor a la Mary Kay Andrews or Celia Rivenbark or Southern Gothic by Amanda Stevens or Daniel Hecht or a cozy mystery set in the South like this one.

There's a fab mystery, a good reason for the main characters to get involved in the solving of the mystery, and the unique euphemisms of the South abound throughout.

The story is tight in a good way. No loose ends or what the...moments. I loved the good guy characters and wanted to smack the poopy ones.

I look forward to reading the rest of this series.

There are also some highly nifty organic skin care recipes in the back of the book. I like the exfoliating one a lot.

Five Southern beauty beans.....

BONES OF A FEATHER: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery - Carolyn Haines

From the back of the book: A missing four-million-dollar necklace makes for high stakes for PI Sarah Booth Delaney when its wealthy owner is also snatched up in the latest charming southern mystery from Carolyn Haines.

When PI Sarah Booth Delaney takes on Monica and Eleanor Levert as clients, she doesn't have much hope of solving the case. The wealthy heiresses of Briarcliff in Natchez, MS, claim that a necklace worth four million dollars has been stolen, and they think that they can hurry the insurance payout if a reputable PI investigates. Sarah Booth has her doubts, and not just about the payout. All of hte evidence suggest the sister might be committing fraud.

Then, just when she begins to scratch the surface of the Levert family's sordid past and the blood money that their wealth was founded upon, Monica goes missing. The police suspect that the heiresses are still playing, and Eleanor isn't doing anything to make them think any different. But how can she? If she says or does anything besides pass on the insurance money to the kidnappers, they'll kill Monica.

With a family history that runs deep and dark and a twisting plot where no one is exactly what they seem. Sarah Booth is the Levert sisters' best and only hope in the latest in Carolyn Haines sparkling southern mystery series.

******************************************************

Oh, how I love this series!! Sarah Booth and Tinkie are some of my favorite ladies in the book world. Smart, funny, resourceful and feisty. They take on the stolen insurance case for the Leverts even though they've promised their significant others that they will be more careful with their cases. It seems innocuous enough at the beginning, but everything begins to escalate with the abduction of one of the sisters.

There is a serious Gothic texture to this, the eleventh outing for Sarah Booth and Tinkie. I love Southern humor, Southern mystery and Southern Gothic. BONES OF A FEATHER has all three to the nth degree!!

BONES OF A FEATHER comes out on 21 June, do yourself a favor and buy this fine addition to the series.

Five sparkly Southern diamonds......

GONE WITH A HANDSOMER MAN - Michael Lee West

From the back of the book: "All I ever wanted in life was true love, a set of copper cookware, and the perfect recipe for Red Velvet cake. The last thing I wanted was to end up on Charleston's six o'clock news, accused of murder and a slew of other crimes."

After Teeny Templeton catches her fiance playing naked badminton with two other women, she finds herself in a whole lot of trouble. When he is found dead a few days later, all fingers point to her and Teeny's only hope is an old boyfriend-turned-lawyer. With evidence mounting and the heat turning up, Teeny must figure out where tolive, how to support herself, how to clear her name, and how to protect her heart.

Hilarious, sexy, and wise, this debut mystery from acclaimed author Michael Lee West is full of surprises.

******************************************

On the back of the book, one of the blurbs states that they hope that there is going to be a sequel...I am with the blurb writer! I love mysteries of all kinds and in the tippy top are the ones taking place in the South. There's humor, food and superb characters along with the mystery solving.

I adore Teeny! She is the epitome of my vision of the strong, sassy, git'r'done Southern woman who finds herself in a pickle and goes about doing what needs doing to get out of it.

The dialogue tickled me no end, from PI Red calling Teeny 'girlie' to Teeny's way of getting through situations with imaginary recipes like Smother Your Love gravy poured over Forget Him pork chops, with a heaping side dish of He's Better Off With Her pie.

Thank you, LibraryThing, for sending this out to me for my February selection!

Five big ol' sparkly had me at nekkid badminton diamonds.....

BONES TO PICK: Book 6 Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery - Carolyn Haines, narr Kate Forbes

From the back of the BOCD: Mississippi native Carolyn Haines writes spicy mysteries teeming with all the eccentricities of Southern society. BONES TO PICK continues the adventures of sassy PI Sarah Booth Delaney.

Quentin McGee, author of a sensational expose, has been murdered, and her lover Allison has been charged with the crime. Sarah is hired to find the real culprit, but the investigation won't be easy. Quentin has so many enemies, including her own family and all those rich, powerful people mentioned in her book. As scandal brews, the suspect list continues to grow, and Sarah fears that the killer isn't finished yet.

Haines' Southern Belle mystery, together with a spirited narration frm Kate Forbes, draws listeners right into the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Haines' CROSSED BONES is also available from RecordedBooks.

***********************

Hawt Dayum! This is such a good series. And I've only read two of them! Now there's a whole lot that's happened between book one, THEM BONES (my review), and book 6, so I will be going back to catch up. I meant to read the series in order, but this one popped up on my wishlist on RecordedBooks and I couldn't wait to spend time with Sarah Booth and her buddy Tinkie and the rest of the crowd.

I adore Sarah Booth. She calls it as she sees it, recognizes a bitch when she sees one and is ready to help a friend whether the friend realizes she needs help or not.

Sarah Booth and Tinkie are hired to find the killer of a local girl who wrote a scathing tell-all book about her community of wealthy high society folk. Everyone is a suspect and it's up to Sarah Booth and Tinkie to find the real killer. Things start to accelerate and my jaw dropped when the killer was revealed.

I do love Sarah Booth, but my favorite character in this book was Tinkie. She has some emotional turmoil of her own to get through and wants to get through it on her own, but she still is out there with Sarah Booth investigating. And she is so funny and I kept wanting to reach in the book and hug her. She and Sarah Booth are women I admire, tough and sweet and I always imagine them wearing a strand or two of pearls. And are willing to call a bitch a bitch.

Five Southern sweet tea diamonds.....and a big ol' string of pearls.....