A Fort Worth homicide cop takes a month’s leave to pursue a legal career.
Cézanne Martin’s life has more downs than ups. Her ex-lover’s wife is on the loose and taking potshots at her, and her new law practice has neither clients nor an office. Then Hollis Rushmore informs her that her daddy, last seen when she was a kiddie, has passed on and left his fabulous four-bedroom house up for grabs. He forgets to mention that her nutty Aunt Velda, last seen 20 years ago, is already in residence. Meanwhile, Cézanne’s brother Henri Matisse, also last heard from decades ago, drops in to claim the house as his inheritance and put the moves on his sister. Cézanne’s fiancé has married someone else; her ex-lover still wants her more than his wife; and Slash, the nonpareil crime-scene investigator who’s sent her a case—the defense of convicted wife murderer Erick Rackley—thinks she’s mighty cute. Her temporary ward, a voodoo-practicing black child-woman, is on the verge of loving men as much as she loves her dog when the dog suddenly goes missing. So does Rackley, giving everyone in town, maybe even from out of town, the cue to take more shots at Cézanne, who somehow extricates herself from this screwball folderol and makes plans for a European jaunt.
Moore (The Wild Orchid Society, 2004, etc.) definitely thrives on excess. But she’s wildly funny and impressively adroit at tying up all the wacky bits and pieces. Go ahead and read it. You need a good laugh.
