A Bad Day for Scandal

April 4, 2011
In Edgar-finalist Littlefield's lively third crime novel featuring feisty Stella Hardesty (after 2010's A Bad Day for Pretty), Priscilla "Priss" Porter asks Stella to get rid of a corpse. When Stella, who specializes in solving problems of the abusive husband variety in her small Missouri town, refuses to help, Priss threatens to go public with some very damning photos that could not only damage Stella's budding relationship with Sheriff Goat Jones but maybe even land her in jail. After Priss; her brother, Liman; and the photos vanish, Stella becomes the prime suspect. Stella and her assistant, Chrissy Shaw, decide to get the photos back themselves, but that's easier said than done when they run up against an oversexed female judge with ties to Priss and Priss's new business venture. Littlefield's eccentric cast of characters grows richer with each book, and Stella continues to dazzle with her wit, charm, and ease with firearms.

March 1, 2011

A pair of female crime-stoppers mete out vigilante justice.

Stella Hardesty and her assistant Chrissy Shaw (A Bad Day for Pretty, 2010, etc.) are looking for the flash drive showing Stella pummeling a wife-beater that Priss Porter is using to blackmail her into disposing of a man's corpse in the trunk of her Mercedes. As they rifle through Priss' digs in Prosper, goons appear. Using guile, firepower and cleavage, the dynamic duo stop them cold and learn that they too were seeking a flash drive but at the instigation of a female judge. Before you can so much as sniff a sex scandal in the making, Priss, her brother Liman and the corpse go missing; Stella's love, Sheriff Goat Jones, finds her scarf in the abandoned house; and the race is on to uncover who's a victim, who's a perp, and whether Stella's career as a punisher of abusive males will send her to the slammer. Stella's liberal belief that it's OK to be gay is tested when her beautician daughter Noelle enters a series of lesbian affairs. Stella and Chrissy discover that Priss' main source of income, the Elegant Company, provides escorts for lonely ladies like that judge. Also in the mix is Priss' old, possibly current beau, Salty Mingus, whose wife takes exception to his romantic leanings. There'll be standoffs with several of the Elegant escorts, men turning to mush at a glimpse of Chrissy's endowments, and some snappy repartee and motherly advice from Stella before bodies emerge from a pond and the sheriff sighs with relief when he doesn't have to arrest his gal pal.

If we all had mothers like Stella, this would be a better world. Fans of quirky mysteries straddling the line between tough and funny need to grab a Littlefield pronto.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011
With things heating up between self-styled vigilante Stella Hardesty and sexy sheriff Goat Jones, Stella finds both her relationship and her livelihood at risk by the possibility of blackmail. Priss Porter, generally disliked for turning her back on Prosper, Missouri, returns to the small town and demands Stellas help in disposing of a body. If Stella refuses, Priss threatens to tell all how Stellas covert benevolent aid society for abused women actually operates. When Priss and her brother disappear, Stella becomes a person of interest, forcing her to do her own sleuthing, all the while worrying about how her spirit-of-the-law tactics conflict with letter-of-the-law Goat. This third in this series (after A Bad Day for Pretty, 2010) is livened up with Stellas daughter Noelles concerns about her sexuality, the development of Chrissy Shaw as Stellas assistant, and plans to celebrate Easter in grand style. But its fiftyish Stella, healthy and toned after her recent injuries, who continues to carry the day, as always, in this sassy mix of comedy and mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2011

Priss Porter has another thing coming if she thinks Stella Hardesty, locally renowned vigilante against wife beaters, is available to be a cleaner for someone's murder. Confronted with the dead guy in Priss's car trunk, Stella then realizes that Priss, a desperate bully, will blackmail her with compromising photos of Stella on her flash drive. Now on a mission to retrieve the flash drive, Stella comes up short when Priss, Priss's brother, and the dead guy totally disappear. Stella and her colorful ensemble of family and friends unearth (among other things) a dysfunctional male escort service in Kansas City, which helps explain Priss's desperation. VERDICT This caper is more fun than eating cotton candy on a Ferris wheel. Littlefield's zesty dialog and astute observations make this irreverent third series entry (after A Bad Day for Sorry and A Bad Day for Pretty) fly by. The zaniness evokes Janet Evanovich or Harley Jane Kozak; the story itself, Ben Rehder, who writes so well about good old boys behaving badly. [Library marketing.]

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