Decaffeinated Scandal

It's Neewollah Festival (Halloween) time in Honey Springs, Kentucky, and everyone is busy decorating, baking or planning for the holiday. In Decaffeinated Scandal by Tonya Kappes, Roxy's prep is in full swing at her Bean Hive coffeehouse.

With her competitive mother and aggressive aunt nagging her to let them plan her wedding, she can't make any plans without offending one or the other. She decides to do nothing for the time being even though she wants desperately to marry Patrick Cane.

News spreads around town that someone wants to purchase the Bee Farm in Honey Springs and try to change the entire character of the town. Roxy, in full on Save the Town mode, ramps up her efforts after she meets the obnoxious businessman involved.

When she meets Ron Harvey and his wife and young grandson, her opinion of him doesn't change. He boasts about having money to invest and looking for a good place to do that. His wife confides in Roxy that Ron has had a volatile relationship with his a daughter and is trying to compensate for his lack of attention when she was growing up.

When Ron is murdered and someone looking like his daughter is seen running away from the crime, Roxy plunges in to save the farm and her town.

And oh by the way, she decides to marry Patrick in a clever, tricky way. Another entertaining mystery in this series.

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Six Feet Under

When the Culinary Channel's show Southern Home Cookin' makes plans to visit Cottonwood, Kentucky, Vivian Lowry is sure this is her chance to become a baking star. In Six Feet Under by Tonya Kappes, Sheriff Kenni Lowry has her hands full with her mother's budding stardom and the animosity generated by the TV star Frank Von Lee.

Vivian is going all out to win the approval of Frank, as she calls him, with her well known chicken pot pie. She even has resorted to botox injections, which worries Kenni, especially as the results are not positive.

When Frank turns up dead in hotel room with remnants of chicken pot pie surrounding him, all eyes focus on Vivian. Because of this Kenni is removed from the investigation and her detective Finn Vincent takes over. That doesn't stop Kenni from looking into the case, from another angle.

Kenni decides to follow the Botox party leads to see where this illegal is operating and how she can

close it down. While she investigates, she nearly finds herself injected with the illegal botox and stumbles across the fraudulent pink handicapped parking signs.

Once again Tonya Kappes gives us a glimpse of life in a small town in the south. Vivian is a "nation" unto herself and would drive any sane person crazy. It's a good thing Kenni has her ghost Poppa to help her.

Ax to Grind

A tense, unpredictable drama featuring Sheriff Kenni Lowry and her ghostly grandfather. Ax to Grind by Tonya Kappes is one of her best. 

When author Berlye Stone dies and her estate plans to hold a huge sale, many residents of Cottonwood fear there is a tell-all book among her belongings. Berlye's assistant Cecily Hoover asks the sheriff's office for extra protection for the estate, but Kenni isn't sure she has the manpower to do it. 

With scores of visitors from out of town descending on Cottonwood, Ruby's antique shop is booming. Many of Berlye's best pieces are housed there. But two factions are forming over the missing manuscript - Cecily believes it should go to the publisher and Ruby and the townspeople think it should be destroyed sight unseen. When Cecily vows no one will find the manuscript except over her dead body, Kenni feels a chill.

When Berlye's assistant turns up dead with an ax to her head and the wife of a former deputy is injured, Kenni and he handsome new deputy Finn Vincent are called to investigate. They find Cecily dead at the back door to Ruby's Antiques and inside they find Paige Lemar alive, but barely breathing.

What does the manuscript contain to provoke a killer? Where is the manuscript as Cecily said she had searched the entire mansion? And why does Kenni's stomach do a flip when Deputy Finn is around?

This was one of Tonya Kappes' best plotted mysteries. It kept me guessing throughout the book.  

For a review of another book by Tonya Kappes -  Seeing Ghosts, click here.

Betting Off Dead

When you are 28 years old and haven't figured out your life's journey, it is not a good thing, but when you are a witch and your Witchy Hour doesn't define a clear life's journey path, it is a disaster. In Tonya Kappes' Betting Off Dead, Maggie Park believes her life's journey is to work for SKUL, Secret Keepers of the Universal Law although her mother isn't so sure.

One of the key reasons Maggie believes her life's journey is SKUL is the very handsome agent Mike Jasper. She worked with him in the past and her witchy antennae is picking up another encounter. Sure enough he appears to convince her to play his wife in an investigation concerning horse doping and Churchill Downs.  Maggie stopped listening after he said "play his wife." She'd take the job whatever else it entailed.

It's their mission to get close to a group of wealthy couples involved in horse auctions. Sounds easy, right? But Maggie is surrounded by her witchy family, the Spell Circle of five and her familiar, a 1965 red AC Cobra. Nothing is easy with that array of characters around her.

Plunging into her assignment with Mike Jasper, Maggie even has a huge diamond ring to help her play the part. SKUL has concerns that someone is planning to dope horses that are competing in the Kentucky Derby. No loyal Kentuckian would want anything to happen during the sacred race at Churchill Downs, so Maggie works hard to discover who is behind the doping.

Another fun read by Tonya Kappes. My guess is there is something about Mike Jasper that might surprise us!

Good Hearted Criminal

I am new to this series by Tonya Kappes so I was anxious to read it. Checkered Crimes features a smart, sassy character with a checkered past for her short 22 years of life. Laurel London was raised in an orphanage in Walnut Grove, Kentucky. Her youth was spend hacking into bank accounts to purchase gifts for the other orphans and along with various and sundry other petty crimes. Needless to say she is not the first person anyone thinks of when there is a job available. 

Now she is back in Kentucky and hoping to prove to the citizens of Walnut Grove that she is a changed person. sales job at Porty Morty's port-a-let business, Laurel has taken to Lunch Date Dot Com to cadge free lunches from men looking for dates.

When Trigger Finger Tony Cardozza mistakes her yellow car for a cab, he hires Laurel to drive him from the airport hotel to Walnut Grove several times in a week. After he drops wads of cash on her front seat to pay her, Laurel figures she an be a taxi drier for a while. When another customer jumps in the back seat after Tony leaves the car, Laurel is stunned to discover her new passenger is an FBI

agent named Jax Jackson.

Before long Laurel has two jobs - driving a mobster around and  working undercover for the FBI. What could go wrong?

I'm happy to have stumbled on this series and I look forward to the other books. Laurel is a charming, wayward woman and she really does have a heart of gold. The resolution of this book leads to much speculation as to what the next books entail. Can't wait.  

To see what other books this prolific author has written, click here.  

 

Seeing Ghosts

Emma Lee Raines sees dead people; not in the Sixth Sense way, but people who have been murdered and cannot cross over. In A Ghostly Undertaking by Tonya Kappes, Emma is an undertaker for Eternal Slumber Funeral Home in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky, and ever since a plastic Santa fell on her head, she is able to see dead people. Not that she is willing, but they happen to find her.

Her first visitor is Ruthie Sue Payne, the ex-wife of Emma's grandmother's husband. She claims she was pushed down a flight of stairs causing her death, and she tries to blame Granny Raines. Emma needs to clear her grandmother of suspicion, so she decides to investigate with the ghost watching her every move. Of course talking to a ghost leads many in Sleepy Hollow to believe Emma has Funeral Trauma and is crazy.

The premise of this book is so wacky, but I loved it. Emma talking to ghosts while others are around watching is hilarious. Fortunately Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, who is sweet on Emma, believes her and looks at Ruthie Sue's death as a murder. From an ambitious mayor to a goth newcomer to town to the women's Auxiliary, there are

plenty of suspects to go around.

When Jack Henry takes Emma to a medium, she discovers she is a Betweener medium, helping the

dead who are caught in the here and there. Many have unfinished business to attend to, and Emma knows she will be called on again and again to help them cross.

I look forward to the other books in this series. My one complaint about the book is the cover. I don't think the figure of an attractive woman is necessary to encourage people to read the book. I hope the future covers are different.See other Tonya Kappes books by clicking here.