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“A fun and feisty heroine” (Janet Evanovich, author of Lean Mean Thirteen) stars in another smart, suspenseful mystery from the Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Short Change.
To help her new chocolate shop flourish, gourmande Helen Taggart has hired Tucker Sinclair and Associates. (Tucker will admit that by “Associates,” she means Eugene, an asthmatic young secretary and Dick Tracy wannabe.) Then one night, Tucker finds the shop open, truffles strewn across the floor—and the body of cleaning woman Lupe Ortiz lying next to a bloody green feather…
Death and chocolate in Beverly Hills sounds like a delicious way to die, but it's an unfortunate combo for Lupe Ortiz, a Latina cleaning lady, in Smiley's appealing fourth Tucker Sinclair sleuthfest (after 2007's Short Change). Tucker, a marketing expert, finds Lupe's body in the bathroom of Nectar, a new gourmet chocolate shop owned by a client of Tucker's. A quetzal feather left by the corpse, a signature of the MayaBoyz, points to Lupe's son Roberto, who belongs to the East L.A. gang, as the prime suspect. Doubtful of Roberto's guilt, Tucker asks her PI friend, Charley Tate, to investigate. Her overeager assistant, Eugene Barstok, also gets involved, but causes dismay when he disappears while undercover. Smiley fills this chocolate-enriched puzzler with touristy L.A. intel, while Tucker's no-nonsense first-person narration keeps the pages turning despite a predictable ending. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Los Angeles business consultant Tucker Sinclair (Cover Your Assets), while trying to find ways to make a chocolate shop more solvent, finds that murder leads to danger. She must also solve the business problems of her ex-boyfriend's sister. A nice alternative for patrons waiting for the next Janet Evanovich mystery.
Los Angeles based business consultant Tucker Sinclair shares a suite with private detective Charley Tate. Her latest client is Nectar, an upscale chocolate shop who needs Tucker¿s skills so the owner Helen Taggart can sell candies at a profit. One day Tucker arrives to find the Nectar door surprisingly open and knowing the fastidious Helen she becomes worried even before she enters the store..----------------------- Her fears prove right when she finds the corpse of Helen¿s clerk Lupe Ortiz nothing appears stolen, but next to the body is the feather of a Quetzal bird native to Guatemala and the symbol of a local gang. The police arrest Lupe¿s son, a meth addict but Tucker¿s assistant Eugene believes he is innocent. He goes undercover following clues that he feels will lead to the real killer. Tucker follows his clues to prevent him from becoming the next victim.-------------- COOL CACHE is a charming cozy that is much more than cotton candy as the story line deals with societal issues like gangs and antiquity thefts. The heroine is a delightful intrepid individual as she refuses to give up on insuring Eugene is safe a neat gender reversal as the woman comes to the rescue of the man in peril. Patricia Smiley entertains the sub-genre with a likable cast inside a solid dual amateur sleuth investigative tale.--------------- Harriet Klausner
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Posted December 14, 2009
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Overview
“A fun and feisty heroine” (Janet Evanovich, author of Lean Mean Thirteen) stars in another smart, suspenseful mystery from the Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Short Change.
To help her new chocolate shop flourish, gourmande Helen Taggart has hired Tucker Sinclair and Associates. (Tucker will admit that by “Associates,” she means Eugene, an asthmatic young secretary and Dick Tracy wannabe.) Then one night, Tucker finds the shop open, truffles strewn across the floor—and the body of cleaning woman Lupe Ortiz lying next to a bloody green feather…