One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest: A Pauline Sokol Mystery - Softcover

Avocato, Lori

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060731672 ISBN 13: 9780060731670

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2005

Synopsis

When Pauline Sokol goes undercover to investigate brokers who match psychiatric patients with treatment facilities for high dollar bounties, she suddenly finds herself confined against her will in a mental hospital run by nuns! Of course, convincing the staff that she's not crazy is like convincing a jailer that she's innocent, so Pauline decides to use the time to her advantage and continues with her investigation. Just as she starts to immerse herself in this strange world and make some headway, her hunky cohort Jagger shows up. When Jagger won't help her escape, Pauline knows that she's in deeper than she ever imagined and her only hope is the help of her colorful and "off kilter" new friends – her fellow patients. But when a crooked cross dressing nun winds up dead, Pauline knows that only her wits can save her from a killer that's committed to silencing her...permanently.

About this title

About the Author

After serving in the Air Force as a registered nurse, Lori Avocato decided to give up nursing to write fiction. She lives in New England and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, PASIC, NINC, Romance Writers of America, the Author's Guild, and Sisters in Crime. She's raising two teenage sons (heaven help her!), and one darling dog, Spanky. Lori is the author of six novels featuring Pauline Sokol: A Dose of Murder; The Stiff and the Dead; One Dead Under the Cuckoo's Nest; Deep Sea Dead; Nip, Tuck, Dead; and Dead on Arrival.

From Publishers Weekly

In Avocato's third comic Pauline Sokol mystery (after The Stiff and the Dead), the ex-nurse turned insurance fraud investigator finds herself drugged, kidnapped and locked in a mental institution under a fictitious name. Enter enigmatic Jagger, who's masquerading as a doctor this time around and, as usual, doesn't tell Pauline much except that she's supposed to investigate a scam involving the placement of "mental patients" for insurance bounty money. Surrounded as she is by oddball inmates and "nuns" with French manicures, it's a tough call to determine who's bonkers and who's not. When one of the nuns ends up impaled on a broom handle and a naked patient gets a little too friendly, Jagger tries to pull Pauline from the case, but our spunky heroine has ideas of her own. While there's more perky narrative than actual sleuthing, readers who were charmed by the eccentric characters from previous books—Pauline's cross-dressing roommates, Polish family members and sleazy boss Fabio—will find this entry every bit as delightful.
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About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060731672
• ISBN 13: 9780060731670
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 352