Saturday, January 7, 2012

Stay at Home Dead by Jeffrey Allen

If it wasn't bad enough that there was a dead man in the backseat of his minivan, his T-shirt reads:  "IT'S NOT A BEER BELLY, IT'S A FUEL TANK FOR A SEX MACHINE."  No wonder somebody killed him...

Kensington Publishing sent me an ARC of this book for review (thank you).  It is published this month, so check with your local bookstore for a copy.

Deuce is a dad who has chosen to stay home with the little one.  His wife is an attorney and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out her wages would exceed his as a high school teacher/coach.  So he and Carly were a team and doing very well together.  At least until they went grocery shopping today...

Deuce's biggest problem is that he can't figure out who would hate him enough to try to pin murder on him.  He's not real sorry about his old classmate's death, but he wouldn't have killed him.  He just didn't speak to him.  Would you talk to someone who had crushed your knee when you were an up and coming football hero who was getting a college scholarship?  The cop decides that is enough of motive to think Deuce is guilty.  And so does a good portion of the community.

This is a small town mystery.  Everybody knows all your history, what you had for lunch, and who they think you like or don't like.  Just that makes the story amusing.  It's also fun to watch the ladies try to oust Deuce from his "Room Father" job because of this case.  One of them wants his job.  But Deuce's lawyer wife didn't become a lawyer because she was dumb...

All the characters are unique, some are unforgettable and a bit unbelievable, and they all go together to make an interesting mystery full of small town dynamics and odd characters.
Why not get yourself a copy of this story and see if you can guess who killed Benny.  I bet you don't guess who!

If you'd like to have my ARC, leave a comment here on the blog and email me at info at bookfaerie.com with your NAME AND ADDRESS and the reason why you'd like to read it.  I'll pick a winner in about a week.

Happy reading.

Black Magic Kitten by Sara Bourgeois

Kinsley Skeenbauer never thought she would go home. At seventeen, she’d left Coventry and didn’t look back. But after a messy divorce, she p...