A BAD DAY FOR SCANDAL

A pair of female crime-stoppers mete out vigilante justice.

Stella Hardesty and her assistant Chrissy Shaw (A Bad Day for Pretty, 2010, etc.) are looking for the flash drive showing Stella pummeling a wife-beater that Priss Porter is using to blackmail her into disposing of a man’s corpse in the trunk of her Mercedes. As they rifle through Priss’ digs in Prosper, goons appear. Using guile, firepower and cleavage, the dynamic duo stop them cold and learn that they too were seeking a flash drive but at the instigation of a female judge. Before you can so much as sniff a sex scandal in the making, Priss, her brother Liman and the corpse go missing; Stella’s love, Sheriff Goat Jones, finds her scarf in the abandoned house; and the race is on to uncover who’s a victim, who’s a perp, and whether Stella’s career as a punisher of abusive males will send her to the slammer. Stella’s liberal belief that it’s OK to be gay is tested when her beautician daughter Noelle enters a series of lesbian affairs. Stella and Chrissy discover that Priss’ main source of income, the Elegant Company, provides escorts for lonely ladies like that judge. Also in the mix is Priss’ old, possibly current beau, Salty Mingus, whose wife takes exception to his romantic leanings. There’ll be standoffs with several of the Elegant escorts, men turning to mush at a glimpse of Chrissy’s endowments, and some snappy repartee and motherly advice from Stella before bodies emerge from a pond and the sheriff sighs with relief when he doesn’t have to arrest his gal pal.

If we all had mothers like Stella, this would be a better world. Fans of quirky mysteries straddling the line between tough and funny need to grab a Littlefield pronto.