Drip Dead-Christy Evans

Drip Dead
Christy Evans
Berkley, Feb 1 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425239896

In Pine Ridge, Oregon apprentice plumber Georgiana Neverall of Hickey & Hickey Plumbing is about to buy her mom Sandra’s house as her mother moves in with her fiancé. She knows the pipes in the kitchen are galvanized steel, which rusts from the inside out over thirty years so leaks should be the norm. Thus, reluctantly Georgie crawls under the house to inspect the plumbing though she loathes that part of a plumber’s job. Instead of drips, she finds the corpse of her mom’s fiancé realtor Gregory Whitlock.

Pine Ridge Sheriff Fred Mitchell arrives along with two blue suited paramedics. Soon afterward Fred arrests Sandra. Georgie knows her mom is only guilty of planning to marry “Mr. Too Smooth” and being a lifetime pain in the butt so like a loyal daughter she decides to investigate over the protests of her maybe boyfriend Councilman Wade Montgomery and her BFF Fred’s girlfriend Sue Gibbons. With Wade and Sue having her back, she begins digging into the cesspool business practices of the deceased as only a former computer security guru as she was could do. As she unravels Smooth’s shaky money scheme, a murderer pursues her while in between her investigation she studies for the plumbing license exam.

Drip Dead is an engaging amateur sleuth mystery as Georgie makes inquires into the deceased’s realty business. The spirited wrench turner obviously needs no sleep as balances her mother’s fears, a nasty investigation into financial crap and the test. Readers will enjoy Georgie who pulls out much more than just a plumb and her two hesitant teammates as they work a nasty Lead Pipe Cinch case while trying not to fall into a deadly Sink Trap.

Harriet Klausner