If you're a regular reader here (and I hope you are), then you know that I'm a Kansas City girl with much love for my sweet city. So how excited was I to find out that Julie Mulhern, author of KC's own Country Club Plaza Murders mystery series had a new book coming out? SO excited! Cold as Ice is the 6th book in the series that started with The Deep End, and it's a series that just keeps getting better!
Ellison Russell, just back in Kansas City after a gallery showing of her paintings in New York City, is thrown back into the Midwestern gossip scene of country club lunches, Junior League, and bridge games. Her teenage daughter Grace is dating and doing those typical (aggravating) teenage girl things. And Ellison is dating as well, taking in a steak dinner at the iconic Golden Ox with hunky homicide detective Anarchy Jones.
In between dealing with broken hearts of 16-year-old girls, unauthorized keg parties in her kitchen, a catfight at a local cocktail party, a dinner date interrupted by a pager, and a menu planning session with a persnickety chef, Ellison finds herself once again doing that thing that she is fast becoming known for--she finds a body. But not just any body.
Ellison found the body of Laurie Michaels. Laurie was the mother of Trip, the 16-year-old boy who created the kegger in the kitchen and broke the hearts of two different girls at that party, one of them being Ellison's daughter Grace. Laurie was also the one who threw a martini at Prudence at cocktail party, Prudence being one of the many women Ellison's late husband cheated on her with. And Laurie was the wife of Tom, who has borrowed over a million dollars from Ellison's bank (her late husband had left it to Grace), and no longer has the collateral or the ability to pay the loan back.
How does Ellison get herself in the middle of these things, and more importantly, how can she get herself out, preferably while holding on to Grace's inheritance, her sanity, and the possibility of a relationship with a very handsome detective?
Julie Mulhern's Cold as Ice is a sharp, striking, clever, incredibly well-written look at life in Kansas City's upper class in the mid 1970s, making me giggle at the memory of things like a princess phone, Love's Baby Soft, and Tame creme rinse. If you love beautifully crafted cozies with a heavy sprinkling of humor, if you love all things Kansas City, or if you just miss the knock-down drag-out catfights of a bygone era, then Julie Mulhern's mysteries are for you. I assure you that they're for me. And I'm for them.
Galleys for Cold as Ice were provided by Henery Press through NetGalley.com, with many thanks.