A Bad Day for Mercy

April 16, 2012
In Antony Award–winner Littlefield’s solid fourth crime novel featuring Stella Hardesty (after 2011’s A Bad Day for Scandal), Stella leaves Missouri for Wisconsin, where her sister, Gracellen, has received a severed ear in the mail and a $30,000 ransom demand for Gracellen’s grown stepson, Chip. Things get even stranger when Stella arrives in Wisconsin and finds Chip, both ears intact, dismembering a body in his house with the help of his Russian girlfriend, Natalya. The pair swear they found the man, Benton Parch, who happens to be Natalya’s abusive ex-husband, dead when they got home from the movies; they’re only trying to clean up the mess. Chip and Natalya point Stella toward Benton’s former business partner, who’s angry that his name was left off the patent for a version of Spanx for men that the two invented. And then there’s the underground Botox ring to investigate. Littlefield makes sure her feisty heroine has plenty to do. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

July 1, 2012
The ear looked just like Chip's even if it wasn't attached to his head anymore, said Gracellen, and it came attached to a note demanding $30,000 for the return of the rest of him alive. Naturally Stella can't refuse her sister's request to rescue the boy. But when she tracks him down, he and his love, Natalya, a mail-order bride from Russia, are hacking away at her husband's body and putting the pieces into several garbage bags for disposal in trash containers around town. No, they insist, they didn't kill him, even if they did want him out of the way so they could marry. Somehow, Benton Parch just arrived dead on their porch, and they felt obligated to get rid of him. And no wonder, since the plastic surgeon trainee the tightwad had paid to do work on Natalya had botched the job royally: Just look at her. The lovers have no idea who might actually have killed him, but they think his former business partner may have had a grievance. Meanwhile, drug dealers are after Natalya's son Luka for late payments, which they've been trying to cover with that ear package and request for money from Gracellen, who supposedly could have gotten funds from Chip's wealthy grandfather, who even though he didn't talk to him, probably would have come up with the cash, it being family and all. Complicating matters, a stowaway in Stella's car looks enough like Luka to be mistaken for him, and Stella's two suitors, Goat the sheriff and BJ of the mushy kisses, are drawn in to help her out, even though Stella has enough strong-arm skills of her own to subdue wife abusers, a task she's taken seriously since disposing of her vile husband Ollie. One MacGuffin after another, with grisly sidelights now and then--exactly what fans have come to expect from hyperactive Littlefield (A Bad Day for Scandal, 2011, etc.).

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June 1, 2012

Stella is not losing her touch in her fourth outing (A Bad Day for Scandal) from an Anthony Award-winning author. Wisconsin won't know what's hit it when the vigilante crosses the state line.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
Feisty Stella Hardesty operates a sideline business meting out justice to men who abuse women, but this time around, it's her little sister who needs her help. She wants Stella to drive to Wisconsin and check on her nephew Chip, who has a history of running up bad gambling debts and has recently been threatened. What she finds, though, is Chip and his new paramour, Natalya, in the process of dismembering her husband. Despite the fact that Natalya felt badly used by her husband, who found her through an online dating service, both Chip and Natalya tell Stella that they found his dead body on their doorstep and believe they are the victims of a setup. Stella sets out to find the murderer, and there are plenty of suspects, among them the deceased's bitter sister and disgruntled business partner. Meanwhile, Stella, about to turn 51, grows tired of waiting for Sheriff Goat Jones to ask her out and falls into lust with bar owner BJ Broderson. In the fourth entry in the series, Littlefield continues to mix comedy and crime in highly appealing fashion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)