MURDER AT VERONICA’S DINER

Four feisty New Jersey women investigate the death of a waitress.

They have no office. They have no staff. They don’t really have any clients. But none of that stops the ladies of the Ferrara Family Detective Agency from detecting their tiny town of Tranquility to within an inch of its previously quiet life. This time, a corpse turns up literally at their feet: As they munch their eggs Benedict (regular for sisters Alberta and Helen and their sister-in-law, Joyce Perkins Ferrara; vegan for Alberta’s granddaughter, Jinx Maldonado) at Veronica’s Diner, waitress Teri Jo Linbruck emerges from the rest room with a knife in her back. Local cop Vinny D’Angelo doesn’t even bother warning them not to investigate, so the women go to town, again literally. After they discover that Teri Jo is actually Theresa Josefina Rizzoli, Helen hauls them all out to Brooklyn to see what they can find out about the late server at Rizzoli’s Diner, her family’s business. They find out enough to talk private pilot Owen O’Hara, who owns Tranqclockery, the clock-repair business next door to Veronica’s, into flying them down to Henderson, Texas, where Teri’s brother, Dominic, is engaged in some shady business for Third Wheel, Inc., the company that owns Godfather’s Diner, the precursor to Veronica’s. As the corpses pile up, Alberta keeps on the trail, eventually risking not only her own life, but that of her boyfriend, Sloan McLelland. But it’s hard to get mad at Alberta or at any of the Ferraras, who are so game you can’t help rooting for them.

Like the heroines’ favorite eggs Benedict, not hard-boiled but tasty.