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Trouble Follows You–starting over as a PI
Trouble Follows You
By Bonnie Edwards
Barbara Black is the protagonist of Trouble Follows You and she tells her story from a first person point of view. Thirty-five and recently divorced from a philandering husband, she strikes out to become a Private Investigator with financial survival as her goal. She works part time following up potential insurance cheats for a larger investigations company. She drums up her own first PI case when the wife of an author Barbara had heard speak at an event is shot and the husband is accused of the murder. The husband is a creep, but claims his innocency, and Barbara takes the case.
While involved in searching out background information for her first case, she gets a second case. Her ex-husband wants her to do a deep background check on his current wife. With the promise of good monetary compensation served up with a side of potential revenge, Barbara takes the case and soon finds herself following some shady characters from Tucson to Oklahoma.
I enjoyed this cozy mystery. The plot is good with threads and motivations that keep the reader guessing. While the investigation of murder is serious, the author manages to inject humor throughout. From time to time, in cozy mysteries, the actions of the protagonist do occasionally step over the legal line and sometimes are not quite believable. Trouble Follows You drifts into these territories increasing the reader’s enjoyment. The book is, after all, fiction and a great escape from more serious tomes. The author lives in Tucson, Arizona, which is the major setting for her books.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #1 in the Adventures of Babs Black series which currently has 3 books in the series.
2. Clean cozy mystery with exactly 5 offensive words in the whole book.
3. There is another author by the same name who writes erotic romances.
Publication: December 6, 2019—Deadly Press
Memorable Lines:
I know teachers. If the plan was a cooperative one among them, they’d still be arguing about who got to pull the trigger.
“Confident, a little brassy, quite sure that she was right about everything. What I mean to say is over-confident and obnoxiously brazen, but my original statement seemed so much more proper.”
There is not much in this world that chocolate won’t solve. The combination of ice cream and chocolate is the universal cure for whatever ails you.
Saddled Up 4 Murder–horse thieves in AZ
Saddled Up 4 Murder
by J.C. Eaton
Sophie (Phee) Kimball is an accountant for Williams Investigations in Glendale, Arizona. She often finds herself unofficially in the middle of murder investigations at the urging (make that insistence) of her mother and her mother’s friends who all live in the popular retirement area of Sun City West. As usual, Phee’s trying to work around the seniors, and their involvement in her investigation is always a source of humor.
In Saddled Up 4 Murder, there are dual mystery threads. Billie, a very unpleasant deli worker, is murdered. Sophie needs to find the perpetrator before one of the elderly ladies who was in the area at the time of the murder is attacked to silence her. Also, and very importantly, the Bye, Bye Birdie Festival is coming up soon when the full-time residents say farewell to the snowbirds. They have a deadline for purchasing balloons for the event and Phee’s mother wants it to be such a success that she gets interviewed on TV. None of this can happen if the crime scene remains cordoned off with yellow tape. The other thread is a string of horses being stolen. Nate, the owner of the detective agency and Marshall, Phee’s fiancé, are hired to track down the horse thieves. It is a hard job given the large area of rugged land they need to cover. In addition, there is no clear motive as these are not expensive race or breeding horses; they come from ranches all over Arizona.
At first I was a little irritated by the amount of time spent in the book on the lack of cellular connectivity and the trouble it causes. Upon further thought, having lived in the West for over 30 years (i.e. since before there were cell phones), I realized that their connection problems were actually very realistic and, in this case, pertinent to the plot. So often I see shows where the main characters are out in the middle of nowhere and have cell phone service. Even in 2022, that is not a realistic scenario.
As always with a J.C. Eaton cozy, the mystery is solid, the descriptions are on target, the characters come alive, and both the situations and dialogue are funny. No Sophie Kimball mystery would be complete without Phee’s mother’s dog, Streetman. The little Chiweenie plays a major role in this book! So, put on your cowboy hat and boots and saddle up for a fun, western cozy mystery.
I would like to extend my thanks to NetGalley and to Beyond the Page Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: 1. #9 in the Sophie Kimball Mystery Series, but could be read as a standalone.
2. Only found in this book in the series, there is a large gathering of several Wiccan covens which is depicted as a fun, family festival. I was uncomfortable with the involvement of the occult. In the book their role and actions are only positive, but I found that to be a deceptive and naive viewpoint. I hope this is an isolated inclusion of a Wiccan event, and I don’t expect this theme to appear in future books in the series.
Publication: March 15, 2022—Beyond the Page Publishing
Memorable Lines:
“What about the field rep from the Department of Agriculture?” “About as useful as a toad on an iceberg.”
“Did you say finagling? Don’t you mean breaking and entering? Good grief! That’s the most preposterous thing you’ve come up with. Compared to that, the other two plans look like masterpieces.”
…people who hide important items sometimes stick them in their freezers. The exception being my mother. There was a no room under those layers of frozen dinners, cookies that had passed their expiration dates, boxes of matzo that had crossed the Red Sea with Moses, and ice cream that had crystalized.
education pathways 