Follow the Dotted Line by Nancy Hersage is a very entertaining cozy mystery, and I enjoyed it immensely. Andrea Bravos is a woman of a certain age (fairly close to my own, which is a nice change), probably over the hill by the standards of her screen writing career, wondering what the rest of her life holds, when that life is shaken up by the arrival of her ex-husband’s ashes. In a styrofoam burger box.
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Andy is determined, for reasons that aren’t clear even to her, to find out exactly what happened to the late father of her four grown children. The kids don’t much care. The widow who sent the ashes sent nothing else but a tersely worded demand that no one bother her about it. But Andy wants to know.
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The mystery surrounding the ashes is clever and well plotted, but what I enjoyed most about the book was the characters. Andy is determined, smart, and a bit snarky. Her kids are individuals, wildly different but still believable as siblings. Her CPA buddy fills in the blanks. And Andy’s teen-aged nephew, Harley Davidson (yes, and there’s a reason for that), dumped on her by her hippy sister, is a real piece of work, a dim bulb with remarkable flashes of brilliance.
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Follow the Dotted Line is full of sharp, snarky writing and interesting side trails, and it pulled me right in. I was given a copy in exchange for an honest review, and I’ll sum that up by saying that when the next Andrea Bravos mystery comes out, I’ll snap it up.
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I enjoyed the first book in Julie Mulhern’s Country Club Murders series (The Deep End, set in Kansas City in the 1970s), but I think Guaranteed to Bleed is even better—I know I could hardly put it down. Ellison 
and her daughter Grace are faced with some real dilemmas in this one, and the humor is balanced by some serious issues. Ellison’s mother is as insufferable as ever—but Ellison uses a few of the tricks she learned from Frances to good effect.
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As soon as I finished Guaranteed to Bleed, I downloaded the third book, Clouds in My Coffee, and it’s just as good as the first two. I’ve never lived in Country-Club-Land myself, but Mulhern does a wonderful job of bringing it to life. I do remember 1974, and she does a great job with that, too.
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In this adventure, it appears that someone is trying to kill Ellison, and she has no idea why, much less who. But Anarchy Jones is there to worry about her, and give her a ride home from the hospital now and then. Ellison’s aunt Sis turns out to be as formidable in her own way as Ellison’s mother, and then there’s Ellison’s sister Marjorie. And a fire bomb, and a duck pond, and a couple of disastrous parties.
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If you like cozy mystery with a significant helping of snark, you’ll love this series.
Kay Hudson 