Peri Minneopa (which sounds suspiciously similar to peri-menopause) is a newly minted private investigator, after years of running her own house cleaning business. Of course she has a handsome and vital policeman as her main squeeze, which comes in handy when things get rough. Her first case involves a mangled hand found in the freezer of one of her old housecleaning accounts. Benny Needles (who is described as a hyper obsessive-compulsive) now owns his mother's home and has turned it into a shrine to honor Dean Martin. Benny can't help constantly attracting police attention, due to his innate weirdness. The main question that emerges is...where is the body, and why are more bodies popping up?
"'Benny, what happened?' she asked him.
'Miss Peri,' he said. 'They think I killed him.'
'Killed who?' Peri looked past Benny to his yard. A body lay crumpled, in the overgrown grass.
'I don't know,' he replied. 'The guy who was sneaking.'
Per walked around to the fence, and ran into Officer Monroe.
'Who was it?'
'ID says David Waters,' he told her. 'Stabbed with a bread knife.'
'And what makes you think Benny did it?'
Officer Monroe shrugged. 'It was his knife.'"
Mysteries with missing bodies or body parts are generally very entertaining, and Ms. Carline capitalizes on this with her perky style of descriptive character names. The plot is a good one...where, oh where, is the body, and where is the missing mega-ring that is needed by the family member who is up to his neck in debt with some very unsavory characters? It all adds up to great fun and an interesting and fresh read from Ms. Carline.
Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Reviews
