Friday, February 24, 2012

Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble

In Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble, Callie Valentine Jones escapes her man troubles by taking off to Cozumel, Mexico. Her cousin, Lovie, has invited the whole family down to visit an archaeological dig. When Elvis, Callie's basset hound, who's really the reincarnated King himself, unearths a skeleton not associated with the dig, foul play is suspected. Things go from bad to worse, when Lovie and Elvis go missing. Callie must step up and find the two before they are harmed.

This was such a fun book to read. It had an interesting story, larger-than-life characters and great chapter titles. The archaeological dig was interesting and I would have liked to see a little more about it included in the story, but that wasn't not the focus of the book. The great characters and their antics clearly drove the story and that was just fine by me. They were all terrific.

I especially liked the chapters written from Elvis's point of view. He's so adorable. Channelling the King through a hound dog was very clever. The author included many Elvis references so that there was no doubt about it; he was the King.

I also loved Fayrene's numerous malapropisms. Classic! Many of them were laugh-out-loud funny, but it took me a second to figure out a few of them. I'm hoping I haven't made the same mistake myself! Ruth Nell, Callie's mother, was also a real hoot.

The author has included some recipes at the back of the book. These include: gluten-free biscuits, grits, peach cobbler, and two kinds of punch, including "Lovie's Prohibition Punch", which was talked about and sampled frequently throughout the book. Each recipe is followed by some notes from Elvis. I haven't tried any of them, but they look good.

Highly recommended for cozy mystery lovers. This is the first book I've read of Webb's, but it won't be the last.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit the Kensington Books website.

For more information about the author and her other books, please visit Peggy Webb's website.

Thanks to those nice people from Kensington Books for this review copy.

Elvis and the Tropical Double Trouble by Peggy Webb, Kensington Books, ©2011. ISBN 9780758241412(Hardcover), 236p, including recipes.

2 comments:

  1. I read the first book in this series, then kind of forgot about them - so many books, so little time. I'll add them to my growing TBR.

    Thanks for the review.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This does sound like a good read. I was curious about the title.

    ReplyDelete

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