Julie Smith PI on a Hot Tin Roof

PI on a Hot Tin Roof

Julie Smith

Forge, July 2005, $24.95, 304 pp.

ISBN 0765312557

By day she is a private detective and by night she is a poet who gives readings in clubs and coffeehouses in New Orleans. One day she gets a call from the Orleans Parish Prison and Talba Wallis is shocked that her lawyer friend Angie Valentino is in jail for drug possession. Angie is her employer's daughter and Talba trusts her implicitly so when she says she was framed, the private detective is determined to clear her name.

The person who ordered the frame was Judge Buddy Champagne who didn't want Angie representing the people from Venetia Isles who oppose his using the Pelican Marina for commercial purposes because it would ruin the neighborhood. Talba goes undercover at the judge's house as a maid to see if she can find proof to exonerate her friend. In a strange twist the judge is murdered and his fianc e hires Talba to find out who the killer is.

Julie Smith can always be counted on to write an exciting who-done-it and with P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOM she exceeds her standards of excellence. The heroine has a tough job because the victim was crooked and had a lot of enemies, some of them in his own family so there are a lot of suspects with viable motives. Watching Talba pursue the investigation is a treat because she has the talent and the confidence to do a good job. She becomes personally involved with the victim's teenage daughter and it is for her that she wants closure which means finding the killer. Award winning Ms. Smith has written perhaps her best mystery in her illustrious career.

Harriet Klausner