Teetotaled

If you're widowed in Prohibition-era New York City, you must be creative to earn a living or remarry. Lola Woodby and her former cook, Berta Lundgren, have a start-up detective agency. So a commission from one of her mother's society friends to retrieve a diary from her daughter, Grace, looks good. Unfortunately, Grace and her future mother-in-law, Muffy, are staying at the very regimented Willow Acres Health Farm on Long Island. Lola and Berta endure a day of health foods and calisthenics but are about to snag the diary when Grace disappears, and Muffy is found murdered. Lola gets fired for losing track of Grace but is rehired by Muffy's fiancéto find her killer. And thus begins a romp through New York society, coastal estates, yachts, Yankee Stadium, and Coney Island, mostly in Lola's red and white Duesenberg, her Pomeranian, Cedric, in tow. This second in the series (following Come Hell or Highball, 2015) will have readers cheering as Lola and Berta triumph after being rebuffed, tricked, and dismissed by the men who hold the keys to murder.--Muller, Karen Copyright 2016 Booklist

Set in 1923, Chance's fun sequel to 2015's Come Hell or Highball takes penniless New York socialite Lola Woodby and her former cook, Berta Lundgren, who have formed the Discreet Retrieval Agency, from the Washington Square apartment left to Lola by her philandering late husband (who used it as a love nest) to the Willow Acres Health Farm on Long Island. Their first client, Sophronia Whiddle, a friend of Lola's mother, wishes them to retrieve the diary of her plump 19-year-old daughter, Grace, who's booked at Willow Acres in an effort to slim down before getting married in eight days. Sophronia fears the diary records indiscretions that could jeopardize the wedding. Lola is reluctant to proceed, since she doesn't get along with Willow Acres' owner and head doctor, who happens to be her brother-in-law, Dr. Chisholm Woodby. Lola and Berta may not be Holmes and Watson, but their deficits in experience and talent are balanced by determination and an abundance of action. P.G. Wodehouse fans will find a lot to like. Agent: Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.