From Publishers Weekly
Evans's (Barking!) hip, zany PI, Grace Smith, has landed in the midst of mischief once again, and as always, her investigation provides plenty of laughs, fast-moving action and suspense. What kind of person decides to leave a considerable fortune to total strangers? Grace is about to find out when Barbra Delaney retains her services to trace a group of people she photographed at the grocery store. One or more of them may become her beneficiaries. Beneath the sunshine and bucolic splendor of Seatoun, Grace's stomping ground, none-too-savory activities are in progress. For starters, Barbra thinks her grown son may be trying to do her in. In no time, Grace encounters a dead body, a smuggling ring, a gorgeous man in drag and enough tangled family relationships to make celibacy seem viable. In addition, she must contend with an eccentric cast of locals whose agendas are, more often than not, at odds with her own. Evans excels at describing life in a small village. As Carter, the postmistress's grandson says, "It's deadsville, this place. It's where lobotomy donors go to retire." Once Grace is on the scene things certainly liven up. Whether suffering from food poisoning or the effects of twenty-mile bike rides when her car breaks down, she's always on the case, even if she doesn't have a clue where it will lead.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The best thing about Evans' books is her feisty, outrageous,outspoken heroine, private investigator Grace Smith. The next bestthing is Evans' off-the-wall, in-your-face humor. With their fanciful(if sometimes byzantine) plots and colossal casts of wackycharacters, the stories are a sheer delight for readers in need of anescape from this all-too-serious world. In her latest adventure,Londoner Grace is about to turn 30, and her resulting"life-is-
so-over" depression is only relieved when she takes on acase for an oddball millionairess who wants to leave her fortune to agroup of strangers she photographed outside the local conveniencestore. Trouble is, she didn't bother to ask their names, and now shewants Grace to track them down. Typically, it isn't that simple, asGrace quickly finds herself dealing with a gory murder, a member ofParliament who's being blackmailed, the discovery of an illegalimmigrant ring, a weird encounter with a transvestite, and a bad caseof food poisoning. Still, it keeps her mind off the over-the-hillblues.
Emily MeltonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
