Happy Never After — Kathy Hogan Trocheck

NUMBER 1 WITH A BULLET

Callahan Garrity is a former Atlanta cop, a part-time sleuth and full-time owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after Atlanta's elite. She and her coterie of devoted helpers can ransack a house for clues faster than it takes a fingerprint to set.

Callahan needs all the help she can get trying to keep Rita Fontaine, a washed-up 1960s teenage rock star, out of jail. It's nothing less than murder when Stu Hightower, the vain, temperamental president of a thriving Atlanta recording company, is found dead in the designer den of his posh home. His only companions are the slug in his heart and Rita, dead-drunk and looking guilty. Callahan believes in Rita's innocence because, after all, Hightower had made more enemies than records in his career. But discovering who hated him enough to kill him could send her floating lifeless down a river of lost dreams without a paddle.