Book Review: Bubbles Unbound

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Bubbles Unbound     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Sarah Strohmeyer
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Cozy   Humorous
Series: Bubbles Yablonsky # 1
Dutton, Mar 2001, $22.95, 288 pp.

Ten years ago in Lehigh, Pennsylvania, hair stylist Bubbles Yablonsky did the hair of cheerleader Laura Buchman on the day the police allege the latter committed suicide. Unhinged by the event, just ask her customers whose scalps turned beet red, her boss sent Bubbles home early where she saw her "Dan the Man" with another woman. Dan left Bubbles and their daughter behind to marry an heiress. Bubbles has attended almost every course offered at the community college so that Dan can pay the bill even if she flunked everything she has taken.

Now Bubbles tries journalism, a word she never heard of before, and likes the class and her on-the-job training at the News-Times. When no reporter is available to cover a story about a school teaching father apparently about to commit suicide, Bubbles gets the assignment. Working with photographer Steve Stiletto, Bubbles investigates a murder that includes much of the local elite as suspects. If she succeeds and lives, maybe she no longer will have to do blue dye jobs, but then again this is Bubbles and she better not give up her day job.

BUBBLES UNBOUND is a humorous cozy starring a plum of a character whose philosophy on life will keep readers wanting to know more about her. The story line centers on Bubbles' first major investigation while struggling with ways to torture Dan and dealing with her gun carrying mom's great escape from the senior citizen crowd. Cozy mystery fans will bubble over the lead character's amateur investigative skills (or lack of) along with the Kool Aid hair dye and other home remedies.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner