Rosalee Deveraux is the proud mother of three adult
daughters, all with family surnames. The oldest is
Madison, "Maddie", married and obsessive compulsive about
clean houses. Mason, "Mace", is the middle child and
works for a nature park. The youngest is Martin, "Marty",
and she is a librarian, very beautiful and very shy.
Rosalee also has a boyfriend that none of her daughters
approve of, Salvatore Provenza. They think he might be a
bit on the shady side.
After a tiring day at work, Mace is thinking about eating
her friend chicken and then making an early night of it
when she gets a call from her mama. Rosalee states she has
been arrested for murder, and asks Mace to come to the jail
to help her out. It seems that while Rosalee was inside
the Indian gambling casino, someone stuffed a dead body
into the trunk of her car. Detective Martinez is in
charge of this case, and he is a hard-nosed newcomer to
Himmarshee, Florida from Miami. The jail house is crowded
with protestors of Rosalee's arrest, including her three
daughters, but he is not swayed in his opinion that this
little old lady is guilty. Mace figures if the police
won't help prove her mother is innocent, the burden falls
on her, and she attacks the job with a vengeance. She
does it extremely well, as she is now number one on the
killer's "hit parade."
This reviewer thoroughly enjoyed Deborah's Sharp's debut,
and also the beginning of the clever Mace Bauer series.
The characters are memorable and the author's narrative is
so believable I kept hitting my neck for mosquitoes. Mace
is a level headed woman completely devoted to her family.
Yes, she has flaws, but they make her real and human.
There will probably be a romantic involvement with the "my
way or the highway" Detective Martinez, and I can hardly
wait to watch these strong protagonists battle it out --
again. Cozy mysteries just don't get much cozier than
MAMA DOES TIME. It would be a great stocking stuffer --
after you have read it, of course.
Meet Mama: a true Southern woman with impeccable manners,
sherbet-colored pantsuits, and four prior husbands, able to
serve sweet tea and sidestep alligator attacks with equal
aplomb. Mama's antics — especially her penchant for finding
trouble — drive her daughters Mace, Maddie, and Marty to
distraction.
One night, while settling in to look for
ex-beaus on COPS, Mace gets a frantic call from her mother.
This time, the trouble is real: Mama found a body in the
trunk of her turquoise convertible and the police think
she's the killer. It doesn't help that the handsome
detective assigned to the case seems determined to prove
Mama's guilt or that the cowboy who broke Mace's heart shows
up at the local Booze ‘n' Breeze in the midst of the
investigation. Before their mama lands in prison — just like
an embarrassing lyric from a country-western song — Mace and
her sisters must find the real culprit.
