Dead Head: A Dirty Business Mystery (Dirty Business Mysteries)
In Harris's enjoyable third Dirty Business mystery (after 2009'sThe Big Dirt Nap), Paula Holliday, amateur sleuth and gardening professional of Springfield, Conn., learns that one of her best clients, Caroline Sturgis, is actually Monica Jane Weithorn, the Fugitive Mom who escaped prison—where she was serving time for drug dealing—25 years earlier. Paula, whose landscaping business is suffering in the current bad economy, had been considering going into partnership with Caroline. Caroline's distraught husband hires Paula to discover who turned his wife in to the authorities. Sgt. Mike O'Malley, a Springfield cop and Paula's friend, wants to know more, too, ditto Paula's journalist friend, Lucy Cavanaugh, who plans to do a story on Monica/Caroline. First-person flashbacks from Monica/Caroline add a depth missing from Paula's previous outing.(Apr.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.