CALAMITY JAYNE RIDES AGAIN

When a competitor tries to sabotage her uncle's ice cream stand during the Iowa State Fair, and her cousin vanishes, Tressa "Calamity" Jayne Turner, donning her trademark pink cowboy boots, is determined to get to the bottom of this frozen fiasco with the help of sexy "Ranger Rick" Townsend. Original.

*Starred Review* Tressa "Calamity Jayne" Turner, who bungled her way into the role of amateur detective, is back, and so is her main squeeze and sparring partner, hunky "Ranger Rick" Townsend. Tressa's Uncle Frank has opened his soft-frozen ice-cream booth at the Iowa State Fair, and as always, members of the family have been recruited to work the concession stand, including Tressa. But this year things go terribly wrong. It's bad enough that someone is sabotaging Uncle Frank's frozen delights with such things as an army of cockroaches, but things really take a turn for the worse when Tressa's cousin Frankie disappears. Tressa's entire, albeit meager, store of sleuthing skills comes into play as she tries to solve these unexpected mysteries. Bacus provides lots of small-town fun with this lovable, fair-haired klutz and lively story, liberally salted with dumb-blond jokes. Although this tale works well as a stand-alone, it's even better paired with the hilarious first book of the series, Calamity Jayne (2006), and more titles are on the way. Shelley Mosley
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