Sarah Strohmeyer, Bubbles All the Way

Bubbles All the Way

Sarah Strohmeyer

Onyx, Nov 2006, $7.99

ISBN: 0451412273

Bubbles Yablonsky is not having an easy time of it because she told her one time lover photo journalist Steve Stiletto that she will not marry him. Instead she plans to remarry her former husband Dan who she loathes; he is blackmailing her by threatening a custody suit over their daughter with their psychiatrist as a witness that Bubbles is an unfit mother. Bubbles cannot understand why Dan insists on marrying someone he knows hates him, but he does.

While visiting at the local House of Beauty, Debbie Shatsky suddenly keels over and drops dead. The police believe that owner Sandy used the wrong glue (Debbie had an allergy to latex and needed latex free glue) to do the victim's hair instead of the one that Debbie brought with her. Bubbles believes this was not a negligent accident, but instead a murder by a cold blooded killer to make Sandy look guilty. She runs her theory by her editor who believes the official verdict while Santa stalks her. Death attempt incidents occur as someone wants Bubbles dead, but she has no idea why just like she cannot comprehend Dan's motive to marry her.

A Bubbles Yablonsky mystery is always a treat to read and this installment is probably the best yet in one of the more superior series on the market today because the heroine is so clueless about the murder, the attempts on her life, and most unsettling Dan's motivation to marry her. Readers like this reviewer assume there is a connection between the three scenarios, but the pleasure of this mystery is to find out what it is and the only way to know that is to read this delightful novel. That is no hardship as Bubbles All The Way is an amusing and exhilarating mystery.

Harriet Klausner