Whack Job (An Elliott Lisbon Mystery)

Author:  Kendel Lynn
Genre:  Mystery

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Elliott Lisbon blends her directorship of the Ballantyne Foundation with her PI-in-Training status by planning parties and performing discreet inquiries for charitable patrons. But when the annual Wonderland Tea Party makes everyone go mad as a hatter, Elli gets pulled into a shooting, a swindle, and the hunt for a Fabergé egg.

From seedy pawn parlors to creepy antique shops, Sea Pine Island’s other half prove to be as wacky as the wealthy. Elli falls farther down the rabbit hole and finds a scheming salesman, a possessive paramour, a dead donor—everything but a bottle labeled “Drink Me.” As events evolve from curious to crazy, Elli gets lost in the maze and finds herself trapped in a house of cards with a killer.

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Elliott Lisbon is training to be a PI, while working as director of the Ballantyne Foundation.  When there is a shooting in the restaurant where she is eating lunch, the victim, Gilbert Goodsen, hires her to find his Faberge egg and the man who stole his money.  Then a murder occurs, and her client is suspected of the murder, so now she has to also prove he didn't do it.

Sounds simple, right?  It turns out that nothing simple happens around Ms. Lisbon.  What should be simple turns into an hysterical farce, with Elliott getting into and out of 'situations' practically on the hour.  Her clothes keep getting ruined (and yours would, too, if you had to literally dodge as many things as she does), and she constantly looks as if she gets in street fights on a regular basis.  However, none of this is her fault - to hear her tell it.  Although there are probably easier ways to get the information she desires, she never quite takes the time to figure them out; hence the spoiling of her clothes and person, not to mention that her client constantly looks as if he was an escapee from an insane asylum, and acts that way too.

So while she is trying to find the egg, she is also trying to organize the Wonderland Tea Party for the foundation, and stay out of a murder investigation that she literally keeps falling right back into, through no fault of her own.  Somehow she manages to come through it all with a sort of bulldog tenacity, and with the belief that her client is innocent, yet is always at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I found this totally enjoyable to read and can't wait to hear from Ms. Lynn and the further adventures of Elliott.  Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Whack-Job-Elliott-Lisbon-Mystery/dp/194097612X/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/911004740

More on Kendel Lynn's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/kendel-lynn/