Synopsis
It’s Spring in Pawpaw County, Indiana. Everybody has a bad case of hanky-panky pants. Senior sleuths Ruby Jane Waskom and Veenie Goens are on the run, chasing down cheating heart Jezebels and shaking child support out of deadbeat baby daddies.
Everybody in the small town of Knobby Waters knows Avonelle Ollis, cantankerous President of the First National Bank. After Avonelle’s husband, esteemed dentist William Apple, passes away, she receives a child support letter from a self-proclaimed mistress. Suspicious, she hires Ruby Jane and Veenie, of the Shady Hoosier Detective Agency, to determine if her late husband was a philandering baby daddy.
The case seems simple until Avonelle’s son, Bromley, heir to his father’s dental empire, and well-known king of the Pawpaw County Hanky Panky Husbands Club, pops up dead in a scarecrow costume. No sooner does the crime-cracking duo get sucked into solving Bromley’s death than Fussy Jones, Commander of the White River Boat and Gun Club, is found with a gig in his chest, literally dead in the water.
When a mysterious new Romeo rolls into town and begins seducing the ladies out at Leisure Hills Retirement Village Veenie’s father, Pappy Sneed, calls for help to retain his reputation as an oldster stud puppy. Ruby Jane bemoans that no one in Pawpaw County can keep their pants on or their skirts down as her own grown daughter, Joyce, begs for help chasing down her philandering husband.
The mounting romantic mysteries come to a surprise head as the senior sleuths outrun shotgun showers to close in on the answers at the Moon Glow Motor Lodge, the Original Home of Hillbilly Hanky Panky. Veenie and Ruby Jane have to buy an extra case of Ben Gay and a buttload of BBs just to keep up with the romantic excitement in this humorous crime classic.
My review
Well, this book is an absolute hoot. It’s brilliant, packed full of wit, comedy and delightfully eccentric characters.
Ruby Jane and Veenie are private investigators working for Harry Shades, whose inability to resist women means he’s temporarily had to leave town. The two mature ladies therefore take on a case concerning the Apple family – or rather, cases. They throw themselves into their duties with energy and determination, and whilst their means might be a little unconventional they’re certainly effective.
The plot bubbles with cleverness, with just the right amount of craziness, and as I’ve mentioned the people we meet in the pages of this novel are wonderful, whether it’s wonderfully awful or wonderfully genuine. The humour dances off the pages and it’s impossible not to chuckle as you absorb this madcap, exciting and entertaining story.
Published by Hot Pants Press, priced from €2.99 (Kindle)