The Goodbye Body (Claire Malloy Mysteries, No. 15) - Softcover

Hess, Joan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312989067 ISBN 13: 9780312989064

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2006

Synopsis

Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas-an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer's offer to let them stay at her well-stocked, well-equipped palatial home while she is traveling.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur-dubious people show up looking for the 'traveling' owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up-and subsequently disappearing-around the grounds of the house. Determined, for once, to stay out of the mysterious doings, Claire's hand is finally forced when the disappearing body turns out to be only the first corpse to turn up...

About this title

About the Author

JOAN HESS is the author of both the Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. She is a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

From Booklist

Why is Claire Malloy such an appealing character? On one hand, she lives what many mystery readers would consider a dream life: amateur sleuth and small-town bookshop owner. On the other hand, Claire is endearing because she is very like most of us: far from rich and even further from perfect, she often breaks things, she messes up her relationship with handsome cop Peter Rosen, and she opens her mouth when she shouldn't. In this madcap entry in the long-running series, Claire and her teenage daughter, Caron, accept a house-sitting invitation from Claire's new friend Dolly Goforth. With her own apartment being fumigated, Claire feels like she has hit the jackpot with Dolly's invitation: a gorgeous home and use of a new Mercedes. The idyll soon turns ugly, though, with the discovery and subsequent disappearance of a dead body. The plot works itself out just fine, but face it, the real attraction here is the opportunity to spend some time with Claire Malloy. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0312989067
• ISBN 13: 9780312989064
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 309