When Cinda Mae Bradbury, former stripper turned
restaurateur, asks Hollywood P.I. Polly Berger to find her missing chef, Polly
ends up tracking down a murderer instead. Is a “killer” mole poblano recipe
enough to murder someone for? Cinda Mae believes someone kidnapped her chef,
Henry, but L.A. Detective Johnny Birdwhistle thinks Henry could be on the run
after murdering his competitor.
Polly’s caught in the middle—trying to stay alive
long enough to solve the case one way or the other. Throw a gun-wielding
brother-in-law in search of Polly’s twin sister in the mix, and another murder
is imminent!
When Polly’s sister is kidnapped, Polly understands
that family is more important than she ever realized before—and she’ll do
anything to protect Franny. But to save her sister, she’s got to solve THE CASE
OF THE VANISHING CHEF!
EXCERPT
When my part-time secretary Bernardo
'Bunny' Contreras, ambled into my private office in
Hollywood and closed the door behind him it meant one thing. It used to mean
two things, but based on the current state of our relationship a new client
must have walked in our front door—a prosperous client, I hoped, because the
balance sheet of my firm, Berger Investigations, Inc., read Red with a capital R.
My name is
Pauline Isabel Berger, which makes me a P.I. by name, as well as by trade, and I’ve
been in business going on three years. My offices are located in 'Tinsel Town,'
seven blocks from the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, which puts us on the
wrong side of the tracks, but the right side of the law.
In addition to
working for me, Bunny is also my karate instructor and swing dance partner. On
weekends he earns his chops as a standup comic, which is why he only works for
me part-time. At the age of twenty-six he's twelve years my junior. Well,
twelve years I admit to.
I looked up to
see Bunny leaning against the frame of my office door grinning his lop-sided
grin. "You'll never guess who's here." My heart sank.
"Do I
wanna know?" I hadn’t meant to sound so grouchy, but Mondays are not my favorite
day.
"Y'all might," he drawled.
I interpreted
his drawl to mean the visitor waiting in the outer office was our previous
client, one Cinda Mae Bradbury, former stripper turned restaurateur.
"Okay,
fill me in. Bun. How long's it been anyway?"
"Coupla
weeks. Enough time for her to finish shutting down The CatWalk and open La
Gringa's, and I quote, ‘the best Mexican food west of east L.A.' She's been
open for two weeks but you've kept me so busy running errands for the shyster
frats, I haven't had time to give it a try. Wanna go there for lunch?"
"Depends
on whether I have an appetite after we meet. Show her in." I took a deep
breath preparing to face my client whose murdered husband almost led to my own
death, though not by her.
