Genre: Mystery
Hardcover: Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN: 9781635115703; 9781635115673
Henery Press Publishing
256 Pages
$31.95; $15.95; $6.99 Amazon
June 9, 2020
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Davis Way smells T-R-O-U-B-L-E when she's fired from half of her part-time job at the Bellisimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. The quarter-time job she's left with is lulling her to sleep, exactly what she's doing when Birdy James, centenarian director of the casino's Lost and Found department, disappears. With five million dollars.
Davis just can't help believing Birdy didn't do it, if no no other reason, she's too old to spend it. If Davis doesn't find the little old lady and the money fast, she'll lose what's left of her job, at which point, there goes her Belissimo everything.
What she needs is a good luck charm. What she gets is her home invaded by hard-headed women, a soft-hearted little man, and major carpet troubles, the combination of which sends Davis's already suspicious mind into overdrive, and that lands her between a jailhouse rock and a very hard place.
A little less conversation and a lot more action are called for if Davis has any chance of saving herself, her marriage, her job, and the heartbreak hotel she calls home.
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Davis Way Cole lives on the twenty-ninth floor of the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. This is due to the fact that she's the wife of Bradley, General Manager, and mother to a pair of three-year-old twin grils. She's also part of a three-person security team for the resort, along with Fantasy and Baylor (just Baylor). When her husband puts her in charge for the week he's going to be out of town - along with owner Richard Sanders and Davis's boss No Hair (forever), she agrees, thinking, what could go wrong?
Aside from the fact that five million dollars has completely disappeared? And there's an Elvis convention filling the rooms and the town? And the woman who runs the Lost and Found - where the money was left - is also gone? Not much...unless you count Davis's mother, her ex-ex-mother-in-law, a missing cashier, a howling cat, frisky dog, and a smell so rancid it will put you in a coma...
When Davis and Fantasy are on the hunt for the missing money (and Birdy, the old, old lady who runs the Lost and Found) they don't want to tell Baylor. Because he'll squeal and tell their boss and anyone else who will listen. So the two women try everything to get the money back, but all that occurs is more problems..and more. And what ensues is complete chaos, Davis trying to find a moment to regroup and not go insane, and her mother spending all her time cooking everything she can. (because cooking is love).
The casino is a madhouse, there are Elvii (or Elvises, depending on who's arguing the point) everywhere, and Davis is frantic to put her hands on the money and keep her family safe. She's also discovering that what seems like an accident wasn't, but when she finds this out it may be too late for all of them -- in more ways than one.
It's a wild roller coaster ride from one end of the casino to another, and one floor to another, moving tomato plants, gawd-awful smells, and several missing persons needing to be located. Meanwhile, she's babysitting a woman who's nearly a hundred, and trying to stay out of the sight of her mother and ex-ex-mother-in-law (a long, long story best saved for another time, and who shouldn't even be there in the first place, according to Davis).
Ms. Archer takes us on this crazy journey from the first page, and keeps us moving through the story like we're trying to find our way out of a house of mirrors at a carnival. Without help. With people trying to kill us. It's fascinating, humorous, suspenseful, and even a little maddening (but that might just be Bea Crawford). If you blink, you'll miss something.
It's an old saying: follow the money. But in this case it's true - if you can find the money; which Davis can't. So there's that. But it starts with that thread and leads into a whole lot more, until you have a regular tapestry in front of you that she needs to unravel. And it's the unraveling that's the most fun you'll ever have. Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Double-Trouble-Davis-Crime-Caper/dp/1635115701/ref
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3321678452
More on Gretchen Archer's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/gretchen-archer/
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