Recommend- Obituary Babe

While I was at the Book Expo of America in D.C. this past May, I snagged an Avanced Reading Copy of SCOOP by Kit Frazier. The book won't be available until September, but I'm going to talk about it now anyway.

This a soft-boiled mystery with a very likable heroine, although the author's website calls this chick-lit mystery. Although Cauley is a believable reporter, she's not the best detective ( one particular clue was left in her jeans pocket and I wanted to smack her for forgetting it) but then she really isn't a detective and it's quickly obvious that she's over her head.

However there are two hot law enforcers to help her and keep things romantically interesting, a very likable group of friends and a great dog. And I have to say that I pride myself on figuring stuff out, but did not see two of the baddies coming since the author very adeptly directed my attention elsewhere. Get a copy of this one, it was a good read.

BACK COVER BLURB: "Cauley MacKinnon is staring down the barrel of thirtieth birthday, certain the only things standing between her and certain doom are instinct, pure dumb luck and a kick-ass hairdresser.

Starting over after a truly bad marriage and armed with a freshly minted journalism degree, Cauley is disappointed to find that the only job she can get in her hometown of Austin is as an obituary writer—something that only happens to interns who’ve been very good, or reporters who’ve been very bad. Somehow, Cauley’s managed to do both. And of course, being the Obituary Babe wreaks havoc on her already disastrous social life.

While on the hunt for a story that will get her off the Death Page, Cauley’s life takes a turn for the worse when hapless childhood friend, Scott Barnes, threatens suicide and barricades himself in a dilapidated old shed where he phones Cauley for help. Cauley manages to talk her friend out of the shotgun and the shed. But Cauley is soon devastated when she discovers Barnes dead at his computer with an empty bottle of bourbon and a computer-generated suicide note. Soon, Cauley is up to her eyelashes in dead bodies and everyone wants to know what Barnes said in the shed—the last time anyone saw him alive."