Working Stiff

Tori Carrington is a husband and wife team who get together and write mystery novels starring Sophie Metropolis. Working Stiff is the 4th of this series.

Sophie is a Greek-American living in Queens. Specifically, she lives in Astoria, which (at least in the book) is like New York's own Little Greece.

Sophie is a private investigator, and she's had her share of odd cases. She mostly finds lost pets (see Sophie Metro for the reasons why...) and cheating spouses cases. She has a loud family who's always in her business, an office manager who is afraid of a lot of things and Puerto Rican, and having trouble deciding between two men.

Does this sound like any other fictional PI to anyone?

Anyway, in this book, Sophie has two major cases. The first is to find a missing body that disappeared from her aunt's mortuary. The second is to prove the innocence of a kid who's about to go on trial for killing his girlfriend.

As usual, she stumbles around, finally figuring things out...in an odd, round-about way. She and Dino (her Greek boyfriend who has great husband potential) get into a big fight, and she finally hooks up with Jake (a man of mystery who's not really husband material, but for one night he's pretty amazing. Oh, and he frequently gets her out of trouble).

And, she solves the mystery. Thankfully. Both of them.

I like these books. They're Stephanie Plum meets "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

I'm serious. She even has an annoying dog.

Oh, and she and Rosie (her office manager) believe that there is a vampire family.

And she is continually having run-ins with the Mob (where she was actually fitted for cement shoes in Dirty Laundry).

The Spellman Files

Ok, so I heard about this one from my mother. The Spellman Files is the first of the series by Lisa Lutz. Curse of the Spellmans is second, and the third is coming out next March (Revenge of the Spellmans).

Let me just tell you...hilarious. So funny.

It's about a family (the Spellmans) who are PI's. Well, all of them except David.

Let me explain. There's Olivia, the mother who hates dentists (for good reason). Al is the ex-policeman-turned-PI. David is their oldest son, and he's "perfect" who's a lawyer. Isabel (out heroine and the one who tells the story) is the "problem child" who didn't attend college but stayed with the family business. Rae is the youngest, and the product of having two much older siblings. There's also Uncle Ray, who's an unabashed nut and addictive...well, everything.

Anyway, it's so funny. Izzy starts dating a dentist (and, I know he's Guatemalan, but when he says he's a dentist, I always think of the elf from Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer), but she tells him she's a schoolteacher. Not a PI.

And such follows the madness of the wars between Ray and Rae, between Izzy and her parents, between Izzy and Rae, and watching David pay off his little sister.

Until, that is, Izzy gets caught up in a 12 year old missing persons case, and Rae goes missing.

Then they meet Inspector Henry Stone.

Did I mention some of Izzy's odd character flaws? She's addicted to old episodes of "Get Smart" (I'm wondering how she felt about the movie...), keeps track of her ex-boyfriends by listing their names, their professions, and what their last words are. Oh, and she prefers to enter by a window instead of by the door.

Numbers 6 and 9 need explained, but it's funny.

Oh, and privacy? Completely overrated in other people, but utterly necessary in your private life. Without it, madness occurs.