Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496723741
Kensington Publishing
277 Pages
$7.99; $5.99 Amazon
September 24, 2019
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Now that Tallie Graver's cleaning business is starting to shine, she's ready to go squeegee to squeegee against Audra McNeal for a major contract at the Astercromb mansion. Tallie's not afraid of a little friendly competition from the new cleaner in town. In fact, Tallie likes Audra, though she wonders how her glamorous rival manages to clean house and maintain her fancy manicure. Tallie has her rubber-gloves full staying one step ahead of her nemesis. Until she finds a well-polished hand poking out of a rolled-up carpet, rendering her competition...dead.
Though it lands Tallie the big job, there's nothing tidy about Audra's death. So between polishing and scrubbing, Tallie's determined to find the killer. Hopefully the police chief doesn't mind her cluttering up his investigation with the filthy dealings she discovers. Turns out Audra was not as squeaky clean as she appeared. And confronting her killer could bring Tallie to a very foul end indeed...
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Tallie Graver is finally happy since her disastrous marriage. She has her own cleaning business with a good crew, a boyfriend she loves, two pets, and a town she's where she's happy. But she's also working for her family part-time at their funeral parlor, which is fair since she lives above them, even if she doesn't like the job. But all in all, she's making it work.
She's ready to bid on a job at a huge mansion, and is up against another cleaner who's just recently arrived in town - Audra McNeal. When Tallie loses the job unfairly, she's angry. But when she arrives at the mansion the next day to retrieve her cleaning supplies and her beloved vacuum cleaner, she sees that someone has thrown it into the dumpster behind the mansion. So getting it back isn't going to be easy, but Tallie's not going to lose it. However, she finds more than her vacuum...she finds the body of Audra, and now she's waist-high in a murder investigation.
When Chief Burton tells her to leave it alone, Tallie knows she can't, since she liked Audra. So he bends a little, telling her she can garner information, but that's it. When Tallie - with the help of her boyfriend Max - digs a bit into Audra, she finds she wasn't the person Tallie thought she was, and might have actually been an enemy. But because her employee Letty asked her to help since Letty's cousin is a suspect, she won't let go. Unfortunately, neither will the killer, who's keeping an eye on Tallie as well as her investigation. If Tallie doesn't hurry, it won't end well and her cleaning days will be over...
This is the fourth book in the series and I have to say that it's one of my favorites. Tallie's business is taking off, and this book concerns that fact. There's plenty of things going on at once - her boyfriend is in town for awhile, she's running a business, deciding what she really wants to do with her future, and of course, attempting to locate a killer. This time out, she's also coming to understand Chief Burton more via her cousin Matt, and I think (and hope) it will bring them to a better understanding of each other. I agree with Burton that she should become a private investigator, but if not, the series is fine just the way it is.
The clues leading up to the murderer aren't all that apparent, and while I wasn't supremely surprised, there was still a bit of me that was. The motive for the murder seemed twisted in itself, but with a twisted mind you can't expect anything else. I enjoyed the ending quite a bit, and it gives us something to look forward to in the next in the series. Recommended.
More on Misty Simon's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/misty-simon/
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