Elvis and the Grateful Dead-Peggy Webb

Elvis and the Grateful Dead
Peggy Webb
Kensington, Oct 2009, $22.00
ISBN: 9780758225917

Tupelo, Mississippi is the town where Elvis grew up. Each year the townsfolk have a Best Elvis Competition that brings in thousands of his fans, impersonators and look alikes. Hair stylist Callie Valentine Jones has the real McCoy, the reincarnated spirit of the King in ironically a hound dog‘s body though she knows it not.. He silently judges the contestants comparing them to when he was in star prime. He also is trying to reconcile Callie with her almost ex-husband Jack who disappears a lot, does not want kids, and has a secret job that only Elvis knows about.

One of the participants Brian Watson is found dead on the piano. When a second impersonator Dick Gerard dies on the dance floor, the local police believe both men were murdered. The prime suspect is Callie’s cousin Lovie, the caterer of the event. When a third person dies, Callie’s Uncle Charlie tries to persuade her not to investigate since Lovie’s was dancing with the second victim when he started shaking and died and the focus will be on her even more and Charlie does not want Callie in danger. Callie and the King make inquiries anyway.

Peggy Webb's amateur sleuth is a lighthearted amusing whodunit with outrageous almost slapstick scenes that Callie seems to step into as she tries to help Lovie, dodge her spouse and deal with a horde of Elvis reenactors when she has the real one. She and Elvis the hound rotate perspective leading to a zany over the top of Woodall Mountain mystery. The second Southern Cousins corny mystery (see ELVIS AND THE DEARLY DEPARTED) is simply entertaining fun.

Harriet Klausner