A Wedding to Die for — Heather Haven

A DETECTIVE AGENCY WITH HEART.
MOM, FAMILY, CAT, AND A WEDDING!
It should be a fabulous time for the PI firm to the stars of Silicon Valley when their own star, Lee Alvarez, is planning a wedding for her very best friend.


Instead, our ace detective is feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. While trying to make this last-minute wedding come alive, she's dead from lack of sleep working all kinds of undercover hours at a new startup company. And as a goffer! How did she come to this?

It's all going on while she's raising her adolescent feline named Tugger - all right, maybe cats aren't all that difficult - but it all feels too much. Maybe that's because, on top of everything else, her own boyfriend seems to want to blow her off - and then he does.

Just when she thinks she can't take any more, she finds out the wedding she'd been working on so hard just might be off. The groom-to-be is sitting in jail, wrongly accused of murder and all clues point to Mexico!

With a hysterical Friend and bride-to-be on her hands, one thing leads to another and Lee flies to the land of enchiladas to find the real killer. Of course, she is accompanied by her mother and formidable boss, the elegant Lila Alvarez, who insists Lee dress to the nines for the flight.

But maybe it's a good thing she did. Sitting several rows behind her on the plane is a drop-dead gorgeous man, who sends up her favorite drink: a martini, severely shaken, with two olives.

But just how did he know that? Is there more to him than meets the eye? Wherever she goes, from the airport to the rancho to the wondrous colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, Mr. Drop Dead Gorgeous seems to be there! Hmmmm.

But our star sleuth can't forget the main reason she's in Mexico -- to clear her best friend's fiancé.

Lee soon uncovers the well-organized world of plundered Mesoamerican relics and Mexican hat dances her way into a whole lot of danger. But is she up for yet another near-death experience? Well! Does she look good in a sombrero or what?

Author Haven once again rolls out all the warm and fuzzy delights a cozy fan could wish for--in the form of a delightfully eccentric, usually squabbling, yet thoroughly loving detective family, each with his or her special talent, beginning with its matriarch. Lila possesses all the WASPy refinement of Princess Grace, in cool contrast to her spirited half-Latina daughter Lee, whom she always, always, always calls Liana. (Lila doesn't believe in nicknames, and that tells you so much!)

Completing the quartet is the adoring uncle everyone loves (he's handsome and he cooks!), and the genius bro' who made the firm famous with his brilliant cyber-detection. Trust us, this series has everything but tea, cookies and in this book, enchiladas.

Fans of PI stories, cozy mysteries, and women sleuths will go bananas over Book Two, especially if they love sharp funny female protagonists like Sue Grafton's witty Kinsey Millhone and Janet Evanovich's lovable Stephanie Plum. Aficionados of Lisa Lutz's family series, The Spellman Files, will get a special kick out of the Alverez's.

Readers will also enjoy the fact that this series may be a first. Father/son detective teams abound--think The Republic of Doyle and The Good Cop--but mom/daughter sleuths are an idea whose time has come. Step right up and meet Lee and Lila. Olé!