Elvis And The Memphis Mambo Murders

July 5, 2010
In Webb's wacky third Southern Cousins mystery (after 2009's Elvis and the Grateful Dead), beautician Callie Valentine Jones swings into sleuth mode with her sidekick, cousin Lovie, after a participant in a dance contest, Babs Mabry Mims, takes a fatal fall over a concrete parapet at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Next, Callie discovers another contestant, Gloria Divine, drowned in the hotel's fountain, and shortly afterward someone attacks Ruby Nell in her room. Callie worries that her mother's dance partner, Thomas Whitenton, who's acting mighty suspiciously, could be the killer. Complicating matters is the resurfacing of Jack Jones, Callie's estranged husband. While Jack's protective instincts are helpful, Callie hates how his mysterious job as an "international consultant" interferes with their marriage. Elvis, the detecting basset hound, continues to be the saving grace of this sometimes cute, sometimes corny cozy series.

July 1, 2010

An anthropomorphic reincarnation of Elvis sidelines a murderer.

Reborn as a basset hound, Elvis accompanies his human companion Callie Valentine Jones, owner of the Hair.Net beauty salon, her exuberantly foul-mouthed cousin Lovie and her mama Ruby Nell to a dance competition at the swank Peabody Hotel in Memphis. The Peabody's red carpet cushions the steps of more than dancing humans and their hound dogs. Every day a duck master escorts a procession of webbed feet along the carpet to a dip in the lobby fountain. This spectacle displeases Elvis, who sets feathers and tempers flying as poor Gloria Divine lies dead in the water, making her the second murder victim among dance contestants following Babs Mabry Mims's splatter after falling 13 floors. Matters escalate when someone whispers, "Die, hoochie Mama," to Ruby Nell, a pronouncement so dire that it causes Callie and Lovie to don disguises, break and enter various hotel rooms and get into scrapes too slapstick for the Marx Brothers, all the while pining for their missing lovers. Not to worry, though. Ruby Nell wins the jitterbug contest, and Elvis gets plenty of Pup-Peroni snacks.

Every inch as gruelingly cute as Elvis and the Grateful Dead (2009). It's enough to make the most diehard Elvis fans switch to Barry Manilow.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2010
In this third installment in Webbs comic mystery series (following Elvis and the Dearly Departed, 2008, and Elvis and the Grateful Dead, 2009), Callie and Loviealong with Callies basset hound, Elvisaccompany Callies mama, Ruby Nell, to Memphis for a mambo contest. Mambo isnt the only thing happening at the hotel, however; a much-married woman falls from the top of the building, and Callie finds a diva floating in the hotel fountain. Someone is targeting women of a certain age, and Ruby Nell fits right into the demographic. Callie and Lovie decide to investigate, which means impersonating hotel maids and getting certain body parts tattooed. In alternating chapters, Elvis, trapped in a dog suit, as he complains, wants to find a way to let his fans know the King is back in town. Webb writes purely funny scenes, with wacky characters getting into ridiculously silly situations, and all with a southern flair.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)