Mama Gets Trashed

July 29, 2013
In chapter one of Sharp’s entertaining fifth Mace Bauer mystery (after 2011’s Mama Sees Stars), Mace and her mother are searching the Himmarshee, Fla., town dump for Mama’s lost wedding ring when they find the body of proper librarian Camilla Law, dressed in a shockingly sexy outfit. Mace’s fiancé, police detective Carlos Martinez, gets on the case, but Mace can’t help doing her own investigation, and Mama is, as usual, unwilling to stay in the background. That the mayor and his cohorts may be involved in the secret bondage activities makes the situation explosive. Mace knows the crime must be solved before someone else ends up in the trash. As Mace comes closer to the answers, Mama disappears. Will Mama be the next victim of a heartless killer? Or can Mace move fast enough to keep her out of the garbage? Readers will eagerly turn the pages to find out. Agent: Whitney Lee, Fielding Agency.

August 1, 2013
The Bauer gals bicker their way through marital woes, engagement snafus and sexual innuendos. Reluctantly accompanying her mama to the Himmarshee dump to retrieve the wedding ring she accidentally threw away, Mace Bauer discovers a diamond bracelet among the pork rinds, crab shells and empty dog food cans. The bauble, sad to say, adorns the arm of a very dead young woman bedecked in fetish garb. Mace's fiance, Carlos the hunky homicide detective, gets the case, which is less interesting to Mama than the plight of her eldest daughter, Maddie, who insists on wearing an unbecoming yellow ensemble to her husband Kenny's birthday do. Maddie, however, has a more serious problem: Could Kenny, newly obsessed with golf, be having an affair, and what ought she to do about her suspicions? She confides her woes to Mace, who, heading for the golf course to snoop, encounters a dishy if lascivious golf pro and a rapacious lesbian bartender, both of whom know secrets about the pseudo-folksy mayor and his cocktail-swilling wife. The trashed victim turns out to be the starchy librarian, whose twin sister arrives to settle her estate. Mace soon discovers that Kenny loaned his hunting cabin to certain golf club members who used it for swinging sex parties. The place is awash in champagne bottles, cigarette butts and a red thong, making Kenny suspect No. 1 in the librarian's murder. But Mace and Mama, after escaping car tails, threats left nailed to their house door and hostile neighbors, prove Kenny innocent, while a plot twist readers will see coming from the first mention of twins ends the sleazy tale. The odd amalgam of porn, gossip and family values overlaid with forced humor is much less fun than Mama Sees Stars (2011).

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