Dead Head: A Dirty Business Mystery [Mass Market Paperback]

In Rosemary Harris's third mystery featuring gardening professional Paula Holliday, readers discover some real dirt and an illegal secret from one of the preppiest moms in town. The Dirty Business series combines humor, small-town personalities and gardening insights to delight fans of amateur sleuth puzzles.

Paula is trying to keep her gardening business and finances afloat during the fall, when many of her clients are scaling back due to their own money struggles. She is spending even more time than usual in her friend Babe's Paradise Diner, redoing the landscaping outside. The diner is Paula's shabby but friendly hangout, and it is threatening to go upscale with a new outdoor patio and a bevy of Main Street moms who now come in between taking their kids to lessons. One of them, Caroline, has been a friend and client of Paula's for a few years. She wants to back Paula in a new business venture: buying a nursery and garden design center. But Caroline does like to drink, and Paula is becoming nervous at the amount of liquor they put away at "business meetings." She is also wondering why Caroline does not seem to want to put her name on the papers.

The situation gets murkier when Caroline runs into a stranger at the Paradise. He says something to her, and she flees. A few days later, an anonymous tip to the police reveals that longtime escaped prisoner Monica from Michigan and Caroline are one and the same. Worse, everyone in town thinks Paula is the one who tipped off the police for a reward. Caroline's husband knows she did not do that, and hires Paula to find out who did and why. He just wants his wife and the mother of his children back, no matter what she did in her teens that landed her in prison for drug trafficking.

Paula is persona non grata in town now, hurting her business even more. Then the Paradise is broken into, and she begins to realize that all these things are connected and decides to find out what happened that uncovered Caroline's secret. The path leads her to interview several folks who have turned up at the diner lately, including two others who are suddenly interested in the old nursery --- the same one she and Caroline were going to buy.

Digging into Caroline's/Monica's high school past leads Paula into danger. Someone wants to stop her and get to the purported money that Caroline made off with all those years ago. Paula tries to work with the local police sergeant, who seems ready to take their easy flirtation to a new level.

Rosemary Harris continues to give Paula a great heart and voice with lots of humorous asides. Babe; Paula's co-sleuth and friend, Lucy; and even Caroline and her family are fun, quirky characters who still seem like realistic people. A scene in a local motel where Paula tries to hide Caroline and her husband with Lucy is laugh-out-loud funny. At times the mystery suspects get confusing as Paula herself tries to untangle the lies, but readers will be rooting for her in this strong series.

In Springfield, Connecticut, gardener Paula Holliday is shocked when the news explodes that one of her clients whom she was considering a partnership with, Caroline Sturgis, is actually Monica Jane Weithorn, who escaped from prison over a quarter of a century ago. Monica Jane had been convicted of drug dealing, but has since straightened out her life becoming a wife and mom as a pillar of society.

Now the "Fugitive Mom" is going back to prison to complete her sentence and probably more for her escape. Caroline's stunned husband Grant tells Paula his wife is a stranger, but needs to know who turned her in to the authorities. Knowing that Paula has solved cases (see The Big Dirt Nap and Pushing Up Daisies), he hires her to investigate; she accepts as she can use the money with the economy still tanked and besides she is curious too. Her friends Police Sergeant Mike O'Malley and reporter Lucy Cavanaugh also wonder who.

Based on headlines from a few years ago, Dead Head is a terrific amateur sleuth though it is the parallel look at the life (past and Present) of the Fugitive Mom who makes this an exhilarating character driven tale. Fast-paced in both eras, readers will be as spellbound as Paula and the rest of Springfield are comparing Dead Head Monica Jane with family matriarch Caroline.

Harriet Klausner

Caroline Sturgis was one of Paula Holliday's clients--in fact, she was one of her most important clients who had also become a friend. She had been working with her for three years and had slowly been able to move Caroline's interests from impatiens, marigold and red salvia, into doing some interesting additional plantings. Now, as her children are getting older and Caroline has little to do, she was trying to talk Paula into a business partnership--she providing the money to buy Guido Chiaramonte's nursery, and Paula being the owner and front person. Dead Head by Rosemary Harris is the third Dirty Business Mystery and this time, Paula is even hired to be a private detective! You won't want to miss this one!

It had all started at Babe Chinnery's diner where Paula and she were discussing the use of false lamium in the planters in front, with Paula guaranteeing that a beautiful yellow would be added when the plant flowered. Paula spent a lot of time there and so it was not surprising that when Caroline, along with a number of other friends, stopped by and saw Paula was there, she came in to talk more about the purchase of the nursery.

But when Caroline was leaving, a deadheaded trucker driving back home stopped her and asked if he knew her. Caroline immediately left; she disappeared for days.

And then it was announced she had been arrested and taken to Michigan. The newspapers called her The Fugitive Mom!" And Caroline was not her name...

Caroline's husband is devastated and, seeks out Paula's help to try to find out what the truth was. She argued that she was not a private detective, but when he mentioned how much he would pay her, and knowing that Caroline wanted and needed her help, she agreed.

Starting with the basics, she found out what Caroline's real name was and then began to trace her teenage life. Because it had been as a teenager that she had been accused and found guilty of running a drug operation!" She was a high school senior cheerleader at the time; they gave her 20 years! And during a work release program, she had walked away and...had built a new life, a place in the community and many who couldn't believe the original charges were true!

But somebody was certainly on the trail and Paula was getting in the way as she tracked down the original trucker who had talked to Carolyn and went on from there to hopefully clear her friend's name as well as preventing her from going back to jail!

I must say that Paula does indeed make a great detective and she's even considering a change in career. But then again, she does seem to get into quite a bit of trouble and Babe and Lucy can't always be around to help! This whodunit has everybody under scrutiny, including a new priest to the community! One of the main characteristics in the books by Rosemary Harris, is the subtle throw-ins and one-liners that spark a smile or an outright chuckle in the middle of a serious scene. The overall package of these novels continuously results in a great read, and admiration for Paula, Babe and Lucy just keeps growing! I love these characters!

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G. A. Bixler

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