"Bodacious Bubbles is back"

In Lehigh, Pennsylvania, Bubbles Yablonsky balances (some would say haphazardly while others would say that is an optimists' opinion) her profession as a hairdresser with her vocation as a reporter at the News-Times. Of course she also crosses that with being a single mom, going to community college, and an occasional bit of mystery solving (some would say that she is the Murphy in that universal law while others would say that is optimistic).

As labor and management strife rocks Lehigh Steel, former executive wife Carol Weaver, was convicted of illegal downsizing when she murdered her husband, Hal. Carol escapes from the State Correctional Institute in Jakeville to offer the story of a lifetime to Bubbles, if the tyro journalist with questionable sleuthing experience (see EVERYONE LOVES BUBBLES) helps her prove her innocence.

Bubbles' latest adventure is an amusing class warfare that would make both major presidential party candidates hide as the contrast between working class wanting to become wealthy (aside to Mr. Gore) vs. Carol and the elite is very funny. Bubbles as usual makes the tale with her poignant caring and stubborn attitude sort of like The Train That Could driven by a blond parody. Though the assault on the upper crust becomes a bit tedious as the early eagles turn somewhat to bogies, fans of irreverent amateurs sleuth tales starring a delightful "loser" who always insures fans win will chuckle with bodacious Bubbles.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 3, 2004

Summary

Bubbles Yablonsky, everyone's favorite flaky hairdresser/ reporter/amateur sleuth, goes all the way in this latest wacky mystery starring the woman Jennifer Crusie calls "Pennsylvania's answer to Erin Brockovich... You're going to love her!" After a cat fight at a stuffy historical society meeting nearly kills her career, Bubbles is given just one week to prove her worth to her editors at the News-Times and earn a real job there by cracking her biggest story ever— finding out who really murdered Carol Weaver's steel-executive husband with cyanide-tipped fingernails. More than Carol's own jail sentence for the homicide is riding on Bubbles's investigation. Also at stake—uncovering possible corruption in the steel industry at the highest level. Nothing will deter Bubbles this time! Not trying to drive with a cell phone in one hand and a mascara wand in the other. Not the shenanigans of mother LuLu, the pressure of getting daughter Jane into a good college (maybe Princeton, maybe Two Guys Community), or the roadblocks posed by Jane's ever-clueless boyfriend G. Not even hunky, gonzo photojournalist Steve Stiletto, who takes Bubbles to bed in a scene so steamy it finally puts pay to her Mel Gibson crush. Gutsy, intuitive, and delivering her best one-liners along with beauty recipes, Bubbles is "behind the wheel, and a wild ride awaits" (Publishers Weekly). It's all in a day's work for a broad like Bubbles.