A Decadent Way To Die-G.A. McKevett

A Decadent Way To Die
G.A. McKevett
Kensington, Jan 25 2011, $24.00
ISBN: 9780758238108

In Southern California legendary for her designing the Helene doll, octogenarian Helene Strauss owns a doll manufacturing company. However, recently there have been incidents that one cannot write off as an elderly person’s accidents; at least that is what her granddaughter Emma Strauss believes while her niece Ada, who runs the business, thinks otherwise.

Emma hires plus-sized private investigator Savannah Reid to uncover who is out to harm her grandmother. She explains she saw the news clip in which Savannah and her visiting grandma from Georgia solved a homicide case so she thought Reid would be perfect for her Oma Helene. The client also mentions that Helene hates Ada who wants to run her life too. The simple case proves convoluted so Savannah lines up help from San Carmelita Police Officer Dirk Coulter who owes her for being at his side during the Murphy brothers’ case and from her office assistant-investigator in training Tammy Hart. All hell breaks loose when a double murder occurs on Helene’s estate.

This is a deep Reid tale that focuses on domestic abuse and contains an afterward with a short analysis of what is abuse and where to get help. Action-packed from start to finish, A Decadent Way To Die is a poignant mystery that grips fans from start to finish with its powerful emotional story line whether it is Reid’s early childhood or Helene’s in Nazi Germany (her short discussion about her best friend Esther is heart-wrenching yet less than a page). This is a winner that well be on everyone’s short list twelve months from now.

Harriet Klausner