Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) by Jana DeLeon
Heads up to anyone who wants a fun, entertaining read featuring great characters and a terrific setting.
Here is the Blurb for the book from Amazon:
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It was a hell of a long shot….
CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world’s largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she’s determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn’t even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard.
Thrust into the middle of a bayou murder mystery, Fortune teams up with a couple of seemingly sweet old ladies whose looks completely belie their hold on the little town. To top things off, the handsome local deputy is asking her too many questions. If she’s not careful, this investigation might blow her cover and get her killed. Armed with her considerable skills and a group of elderly ladies the locals dub The Geritol Mafia, Fortune has no choice but to solve the murder before it’s too late.
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Straight away you can recognise the classic “fish out of water” idea which is a brilliant device when used for romantic comedies and movies. A CIA trained assassin acting the role of librarian and former beauty queen in a small town in the deep South of the USA. Yikes!
Jana DeLeon pulls out all of the strings and draws on her personal knowledge of the South to create the fictional town of Sinful in the Louisiana bayous, within driving distance of New Orleans.
Sinful is populated by a collection of over the top characters who are struggling to keep secrets from the rest of the town – which is particularly difficult when everyone in Sinful knows all there is about the other residents. Bad and good.
Luckily for us, Jana DeLeon has created three female leads who are a delight from the first page, whose antics combine for a fast paced entertaining cozy mystery and over the top action scenes which will have you laughing out loud and staying up to finish the book.
More importantly the central theme of this clean, sex-free, but fast paced book is family and friendship.
Our CIA undercover heroine, Fortune Redding, comes to the town of Sinful friendless and without a family who cares about her, and by the end of the book has made a place for herself with real friends and a community who cares.
We can cheer for the white hats and hiss at the bad guys who want to steal the good people’s money, then cheer when justice is carried out [ with the minimum of blood and gore].
I read several mysteries when I was holiday and this was the clear winner. Loved it.
And the best news? It is a FREE read on most online platforms.
The bad news? It is book one in an 8 book series and if you ever want to read an example of how to hook readers to read more about these characters who you have come to care about, this is it. I have already bought a couple in the series and they are a delight. So be warned – addictive!
Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) by Jana DeLeon
Have fun!