Checked Out

March 30, 2015
In Viets’s snappy 14th Dead-End Job mystery (after 2014’s Catnapped!), Fort Lauderdale, Fla., PI Helen Hawthorne hunts for a John Singer Sargeant watercolor worth $1 million that’s possibly hidden in a book at the Flora Park Library. Helen goes undercover as a volunteer at the private library, the former home of Gilded Age society beauty Flora Portland, where she finds plenty of mischief afoot. Could Flora’s ghost be responsible? Meanwhile, Helen’s husband and fellow PI, Phil Sagemont, works another case, the theft of a golf cart and ruby necklace. Phil has to cope with the very rich and spoiled Bree and Chloe Coakley and their sketchy boyfriends, but they don’t hold a candle to the entitled demands of the library ladies. Helen and Phil are as entertaining as they’ve ever been, and it’s fun to revisit their neighbors at the Coronado Tropic Apartments. Agent: David Hendin, D.H. Literary.