"charming cozy"

Los Angeles based business consultant Tucker Sinclair shares a suite with private detective Charley Tate. Her latest client is Nectar, an upscale chocolate shop who needs Tucker's skills so the owner Helen Taggart can sell candies at a profit. One day Tucker arrives to find the Nectar door surprisingly open and knowing the fastidious Helen she becomes worried even before she enters the store..

Her fears prove right when she finds the corpse of Helen's clerk Lupe Ortiz; nothing appears stolen, but next to the body is the feather of a Quetzal bird native to Guatemala and the symbol of a local gang. The police arrest Lupe's son, a meth addict; but Tucker's assistant Eugene believes he is innocent. He goes undercover following clues that he feels will lead to the real killer. Tucker follows his clues to prevent him from becoming the next victim.

COOL CACHE is a charming cozy that is much more than cotton candy as the story line deals with societal issues like gangs and antiquity thefts. The heroine is a delightful intrepid individual as she refuses to give up on insuring Eugene is safe; a neat gender reversal as the woman comes to the rescue of the man in peril. Patricia Smiley entertains the sub-genre with a likable cast inside a solid dual amateur sleuth investigative tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 7, 2008

Summary

"A fun and feisty heroine" (Janet Evanovich, author of Lean Mean Thirteen) stars in another smart, suspenseful mystery from the Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Short Change.

To help her new chocolate shop flourish, gourmande Helen Taggart has hired Tucker Sinclair and Associates. (Tucker will admit that by "Associates," she means Eugene, an asthmatic young secretary and Dick Tracy wannabe.)

Then one night, Tucker drives by her client's Beverly Hills chocolate shop and finds the door open, truffles strewn across the floor—and the body of cleaning woman Lupe Ortiz lying next to a bloody green feather.

Although Tucker has warned him not to, Eugene Barstok, her fragile secretary-cum-Dick Tracy wannabe, starts investigating. So when he fails to show up for work, she has to follow the kid's unorthodox train of thought and the trail of clues, including the fabled quetzal bird and a Mayan spouted chocolate pot. Tucker knows she must find Eugene before he comes face-to-face with a killer out for sweet revenge.