Cold as Ice

It's really not Ellison's fault that she keeps finding bodies, despite what her mother says. In Cold As Ice by Julie Mulhern, Ellison finds Laurie Michaels dead in the freezer of the country club. Her husband, naturally, is suspected. For Ellison there is more at stake here as Tom owes her late husband's bank one million dollars. 

Ellison tries to keep her promise to Detective Anarchy Jones to stay out of it, but that doesn't happen.When she arrives home one evening and finds a full-fledged teen party raging in her home, she confronts her daughter Grace and discovers Trip Michaels, son of Laurie, was the instigator of the party. 

Try as much as she can, Ellison cannot convince Grace that Trip is not to be trusted. Grace, though, finds out for herself how fickled he is when she encounters a weeping girl who claims to be his girlfriend. 

More worried about the bank's solvency not that Laurie is dead and Tom could possibly be arrested

for murder, Ellison confronts the bank manager Sherman Westcott. He tries to condescend to her and brush off the issue, but Ellison is not satisfied. When someone else is murdered, Ellison searches harder to find the connection.

As always her mother keeps trying to push lawyer Hunter Tafft at Ellison, telling her she needs a man to take care of her. I always find these books so funny for their early 1970s point of view. It's hard to remember the days when all women despite their age were called "girls" and women needed their husband's approval for most everything. 

Ellison's mother is the keeper of this mentality and it drives her crazy, especially as she tries to save her daughter's inheritance.  The other little 70s tidbits make these books so fun to read. 

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