While Barbara Reed's drug-cop boyfriend is away, her life spins out of control. Dave's daughter shifts to drama-queen overdrive, Cheese Puff hits new levels of canine entitlement, and Barb's overbearing sister demands help with a mid-life makeover. To complicate matters, things go missing from the high school, and a plot surfaces to close the city pool. Then things get worse-Barb's neighbor is accused of killing a retired mobster known as Big Shiny. When she was Las Vegas showgirl royalty, Muriel Ballantine steered clear of the vicious thug. She insists she didn't recognize him when she rented the stage at a remote inn to practice her dance routine for a reality show. Barb is certain someone framed Mrs. B-perhaps Glorree Morning, a high-kicking competitor from back in the day. When the investigation stalls and Mrs. B is placed on house arrest, Barb decides it's time to color outside the legal lines.
Author Biography:
Carolyn J. Rose is the author of the popular Subbing isn't for Sissies series (No Substitute for Murder, No Substitute for Money, No Substitute for Maturity, No Substitute for Myth, No Substitute for Mistakes and No Substitute for Motives), as well as the Catskill Mountains mysteries (Hemlock Lake, Through a Yellow Wood, and The Devil's Tombstone). Other works include An Uncertain Refuge, Sea of Regret, A Place of Forgetting, and projects written with her husband, Mike Nettleton (The Hard Karma Shuffle, The Crushed Velvet Miasma, Drum Warrior, Death at Devil's Harbor, Deception at Devil's Harbor, and the short story collection Sucker Punches). She grew up in New York's Catskill Mountains, graduated from the University of Arizona, logged two years in Arkansas with Volunteers in Service to America, and spent 25 years as a television news researcher, writer, producer, and assignment editor in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. She's now a substitute teacher in Vancouver, Washington, and her interests are reading, swimming, walking, gardening, and NOT cooking.
