Dose of Murder ( Avon Mystery Series)

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Overview

This completely delightful and funny debut of a promising new mass market mystery series features a sassy 30–something ex–nurse turned medical insurance fraud investigator.

Nurse Pauline Sokol has overdosed on sneezing, coughing, and chasing around little munchkins with tongue depressors. To salvage her sanity, Pauline must find a new line of work— fast! Unfortunately, there's no time to find her true calling since rent is due, so she follows a hot job tip. Soon she is interviewing with the smarmy head of a medical insurance fraud investigation firm. Hired on the spot, with no qualifications except for her ability to impress the boss with her inspiring ...

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Overview

This completely delightful and funny debut of a promising new mass market mystery series features a sassy 30–something ex–nurse turned medical insurance fraud investigator.

Nurse Pauline Sokol has overdosed on sneezing, coughing, and chasing around little munchkins with tongue depressors. To salvage her sanity, Pauline must find a new line of work— fast! Unfortunately, there's no time to find her true calling since rent is due, so she follows a hot job tip. Soon she is interviewing with the smarmy head of a medical insurance fraud investigation firm. Hired on the spot, with no qualifications except for her ability to impress the boss with her inspiring legs, she is thrown in headfirst with no clue about the biz. Pauline soon realizes that she can use her nursing skills to solve her first case, and with the help of hunky and mysterious fellow investigator Jagger, she learns the ropes––and the fact that this job is more dangerous than she ever imagined! But with the help of Goldie (the 6 foot tall transvestite with a heart of gold), Jagger, and her completely whacky, but totally loveable Polish family, Pauline discovers the tricks of the trade. And as she hits just about every bump in the road along the way, laughs and chaos ensue even as the investigation leads straight to murder!

Editorial Reviews

Curled up with a Good Book Reviews
“A wacky and outright hilarious new mystery series...great sparring dialogue, well-defined characters and comedy galore.”

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060731656
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 9/28/2004
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 376,768
  • Series: Pauline Sokol Series , #1
  • Product dimensions: 4.18 (w) x 6.75 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

After serving in the Air Force as a registered nurse, Lori Avocato decided to give up nursing to write fiction. She lives in New England and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, PASIC, NINC, Romance Writers of America, the Author's Guild, and Sisters in Crime. She's raising two teenage sons (heaven help her!), and one darling dog, Spanky. Lori is the author of six novels featuring Pauline Sokol: A Dose of Murder; The Stiff and the Dead; One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest; Deep Sea Dead; Nip, Tuck, Dead; and Dead on Arrival.

Table of Contents

First Chapter

A Dose of Murder

Chapter One

"Open wide." If I had to repeat that order to this kid one more time, I'd stick my head into the autoclave and roast my brain until it popped like a kernel of corn. Of course, first I'd have to remove all the instruments that are sterilized in the darn thing. That's how my day was going. That's how this damn career was going.

No, that's how my life was going.

I glared at the closemouthed kid sitting in front of me in the pediatrician's office I'd offered to work in for a week -- and groaned.

What the hell was I thinking?

I had a permanent job at the Hospital of Saint Greg's. I didn't need this. Why did I insist on doing favors for others all the time?

Stinky Lapuc, the little boy sitting in front of me with his mouth clamped shut tighter than a clam facing a pot of boiling water, glared at me from his perch on the examining table. I called him "Stinky" because the dear must have eaten beans prior to his visit at the office. His real name on the chart was John. Boring. I liked "Stinky" better. It had character. He had gas.

I waved the throat swab in front of his beady, watery eyes. "Open wide, my dear," I repeated in my best Cinderella's Fairy Godmother voice. "Open wide and let Nurse Pauline Sokol take a peek at those handsome tonsils you have." If not, kiddo, this swab gets poked into your tummy until you open. Okay, I'd never poke a five-year-old, but the way I felt right now, I enjoyed a moment of thinking I was capable of child poking.

Today while my feet hurt worse than Stinky's possible strep throat, I stood there and looked at the swab in my hand. Before I stuck it into his bacteria-laced throat, I wished, for a second, that it was a magic wand and I could whisk myself away to Club Med.

Because, although I don't have a mercenary bone in my body, I also didn't have any money in my savings account, and a magic wand was the only way I'd get there. Admittedly, I'm a shopoholic, but hey, I'm single -- not something I'm proud of by the way, and don't get my mother started on that -- and could shop till I dropped. But not today. Today even shopping didn't pique my interest. Hell, I was tired of taking odd jobs on my vacations. I was tired of my regular job as a unit director in Labor and Delivery who hired and fired staff. I didn't have the stomach for the firing. Frankly, I'd been considering the fact that I was ... burned out.

Nursing had been my life, yet now ... I needed a change. But I couldn't afford to just quit with no future plans.

Stinky looked as if he needed to cough or yawn or something, so I aimed my swab. "Open wide, sugar-doll."

His mother, Mrs. Lapuc and cousin to Andrea Lapuc, who went to high school with me and stole my boyfriend Stephen, gave me an odd look. "You think you could get him to open?" I asked in my most professional voice, although that poking thing wouldn't leave my thoughts.

She took the boy by his collar. "Do what she says or no dessert tonight."

Amazed that the old threat was still used by parents today (My mother had used it as her dinner mantra until I was about thirty. No, wait, she still uses it on me), I stood at the ready.

Stinky hesitated. Then, as if watching a drawbridge go up in slow motion when you're the last car in line and you have to pee, I took the swab from the holder, held it at the ready, and saw his little lips part. It wasn't enough yet, so I gave a pleading look to his mom.

"Dessert."

That did the trick.

Or so I thought, until he bit down on the swab, leaving half of it in my hand. "Don't swallow!" I reached toward his lips. "Open."

He looked at me, then the remainder of the swab shot out with the force of his tongue clearly behind it. I looked down. The swab was stuck to my left breast. "Excuse me." I walked out of the room, screamed inside my head and promptly went to get another one.

"Don't do that this time," I said, giving another pleading look at his mother when I came back in.

"He doesn't feel good, you know."

And I hated my career.

"That's why he's behaving like this," she said, then grabbed his arm. "Open!"

He did, and the swab hit its mark before he clamped shut like Jaws again, and I had my -- hopefully -- last patient taken care of. I gave the mother instructions about the test and turned to go.

Mrs. Lapuc bundled Stinky up although the office had to be a hundred degrees. Outside was snow covered and maybe in the thirties, but this wasn't Alaska. It was Connecticut, for crying out loud.

Babies cried. Toddlers ran rampant. Older kids, I'm guessing by the colorful language, yelled words to the nurses that even I didn't use in the privacy of my home when alone, and the odor of diapers, full and ripe, mixed with medicine that no kid in their right mind would take unless under threat of mother.

The soreness in my feet spread to the tips of my shoulderlength blonde (natural, I swear!) hair, which was wrapped, nurse-style, upon my head. When I got to the nurses' station and had given the swab to Maryann, the full-time nurse who'd know better what to do with it, I collapsed into a chair. Thank goodness it wheeled itself into the counter with the weight of my fall and not out into the hallway where I could have bowled over one of the little patients ...

A Dose of Murder. Copyright © by Lori Avocato. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 10 )

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 8, 2011

    Thumbs down!

    I am a Registered Nurse and feel that this book gives the professional nurse a very poor name. I did not like the character at all as she is just irritating. I struggled getting through the book and kept repeating "grow up".

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  • Posted October 27, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Jennifer Wardrip - Personal Read

    Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed with this title. I muddle my way through chapter five but was unable to finish. Although the premise of the book was a good one (burnt out nurse becomes a P.I.), something about the character of Pauline Sokol just irritated me.

    Others might find it a lot more enjoyable than I did, though!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 25, 2005

    New Insurance Fraud Investigator

    Pauline Sokol decides she is burned out from being a nurse for so many years. So, she quits her job. Then she realizes she has no job and thus no money to pay her many bills. Her best friend and roommate, Miles, sets her up with an interview with his uncle. Thinking she¿d be doing office work, she soon finds out she will be an insurance fraud investigator. Something she knows nothing about. Since she doesn¿t get paid unless she completes an investigation, she sets out to quickly learns how. After almost being caught, Goldie begins to give her some instruction. She also gets some direction when she ties up with Jagger in a ¿you scratch my back, I¿ll scratch yours¿ type of situation. This takes her undercover in a local clinic, one her boyfriend just joined. Can she do her surveillance work as well as help Jagger out with his case, through her undercover work, without wearing herself out, getting caught, or getting herself killed. As she stumbles on a body and tries to keep a level head when around hot Jagger, she finds herself in many hilarious situations. I found myself laughing out loud so many times while reading this book. It is a quick, easy cozy to read. The characters are so much fun, the situations believable, and the plot well-written. I especially like the interaction of Pauline and Jagger, but Goldie is also a hoot. Her parents and uncle really add to the story as well. Her lack of experience does not detract from her ability to help solve this crime. I found it to be believable. I look forward to reading many more Pauline Sokol books. I highly recommend this book.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 16, 2005

    wonderful book

    this is one of the best books i've read in a long time. i would love to read me written by her

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 11, 2005

    Stolen from Evanovich

    I couldn't help but compare all the characters and stories to Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. It was so close that I was unable to enjoy the book.

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    solid who-done-it, chick lit style

    While she is trying to get a sick boy¿s mouth open, Pauline Sokol concludes she just does not want to remain a nurse any longer. After twelve years she is burned out. Her gay roommate Miles gets her a job at an insurance agency as a fraud claims investigator. Her first case is to prove that Tina Macaluso, receiving injury compensation, never injured her back on the job.---- Pauline knows zilch about how to conduct an investigation; sexy Jagger offers to teach her if she will assist him on a case he works involving a group of doctors committing Medicare fraud by filing false claims. He wants Pauline to apply for a job as a temporary nurse since Tina is on medical leave. Jagger¿s source inside the office is murdered while Pauline stumbles across the corpse of the billings clerk leading her to wonder why she is doing the job she detests even undercover and could get killed doing it.---- The heroine finds herself in several crazy situations that leave readers at times chuckling out loud and often concerned whether she can extricate herself from her perils without revealing her true purpose for being in the medical office. The quirky support cast adds humor to this wonderful debut mystery. Lori Avocado provides a solid who-done-it, chick lit style.---- Harriet Klausner

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 29, 2004

    This will hit the best seller list!

    Nurse Pauline Sokol knew she was burned out. Needing something new, her gay roomie, Miles, gets her a job at a company that investigates insurance fraud. Being somewhat accident prone and knowing less than nothing about how to be a private investigator, Pauline is in over her head and she knows it. ....................... Then Jagger steps in to teach her the ropes. In exchange for Jagger showing her how to be a decent P.I. and crack her first case, Pauline agrees to go undercover at a local health clinic to find evidence of medical insurance fraud for Jagger's case. Sounds easy until co-workers start turning up dead. .............................. ***** This mystery will have you chuckling aloud as you try to figure out 'who-did-it'. This is the author's first debut in the mystery genre and I believe she has found her little niche! As the first book in a series, this colorful cast of characters looks to be on their way to the top of the best sellers list! *****

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 30, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 19, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 26, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

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