Campari Crimson: A Private Investigator Comedy Mystery (Franki Amato Mysteries)

Private investigator Franki Amato has just turned thirty, and she feels anything but festive. For starters, she can't have cake because she's given up sweets, and one of her teeth is torturing her. To add insult to birthday injury, she has to investigate a surreal strip club homicide-with her sixtyish ex-stripper landlady. Then her meddling Sicilian grandma crashes the New Orleans non-party and insists that she steal a lemon to land a husband. Unfortunately for Franki, the man she has in mind has his mind somewhere else, and their relationship seems to have soured. Adding to her troubles, she has to figure out what a missing amber pendant and a mysterious amaretto bottle have to do with the murder, not to mention why she's being followed. When a second dancer goes down and a third is threatened, Franki turns to a weird witch to crack the case and cancel a curse before someone blows out her candles for good. BONUS SHORT MYSTERY (hardcover edition only): Cannellino Caramel (Franki Amato Mysteries 4.5)