From Publishers Weekly
While some mannerly mysteries call for a cup of tea and a plate of scones, Trocheck's Georgia-based tale suggests iced coffee and cornbread. The second appearance of sleuth Callahan Garrity, a 34-year-old former policewoman who runs the "House Mouse" cleaning service, offers the smooth writing and feisty characters introduced in the notable Every Crooked Nanny . While sprucing up the messy mansion of racist Civil War buff Elliott Littlefield, Callahan's cleaners find the bloody corpse of a 17-year-old girl. Although a similar homicide occurred in his home 20 years earlier, Littlefield maintains his innocence, insisting that the killer also stole the valuable diary of a Civil War madam. Hired by Littlefield to investigate the robbery, Callahan plainly itches to implicate her Rebel-loving employer in the murder. Callahan's detective pursuits merge seamlessly with details of her home-based relationships with her nosy mother and steady beau, with attention also given to Callahan's earlier bout with breast cancer and a teenage character's bulimia. Even though the roster of eccentric House Mouse employees is less involved than before, other memorable Southern personalities and on-target dialogue lift this appealing whodunit well above the norm. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Like Emma Chizzit, Atlantan J. Callahan Garrity ( Every Crooked Nanny , HarperCollins, 1992) owns a business and sleuths on the side. When she and her cleaning crew arrive at a notorious Inman Park mansion, they discover the body of a teenaged girl. Police handle the murder, but the mansion's owner--himself a suspect--hires ex-cop Callahan to locate a valuable Civil War journal stolen at the same time. With the help of Mom, crew, and the victim's sister, Callahan closes in on the culprit. A smoothly written work featuring the reappearance of an affable, independent heroine. Recommended for most collections.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK)
"Cleaning lady-sleuth Callahan Garrity is as witty as ever."
-- The Toronto Star
"Excellent reading."
Book Description
From her time on the Atlanta police force, Callahan Garrity, house cleaner and private investigator extraordinaire, has excelled at mopping up messes -- of all kinds. But she has no idea what she's getting into when she agrees to work for infamous antiques dealer Elliot Littlefield.
The first day on the job she and her crew discover the bloodied body of a young woman in a bedroom -- and are soon on the trail of a priceless Civil War diary stolen by the killer. As if two crimes aren't enough, deadly serious collectors, right-wing radicals, and impulsive teenagers make the case even more difficult to tidy up ... and more dangerous.
About the Author
Kathy Hogan Trocheck has written seven previous Callahan Garrity mysteries, including Midnight Clear and Strange Brew. A former reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she lives in Georgia with her husband and two children.
To Live and Die in Dixie (A Callahan Garrity Mystery) ANNOTATION
Following her sensational debut in Every Crooked Nanny, housecleaner and occasional P.I. Callahan Garrity uncovers some deadly messes in an Atlanta mansion, including a bloody body in the bedroom. "Memorable Southern personalities and on-target dialogue lift this appealing whodunit well above the norm."--Publishers Weekly.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
When Callahan and her eccentric band of employees clean the Atlanta mansion of social climbing antiques dealer Elliot Littlefield, they find more than cobwebs and dust bunnies: a bust of Hitler in the study, flintlocks in the foyer, and a dead teenage girl in the master bedroom. What they don't find (because it's been stolen) is the diary of Lula Belle Bird, a prostitute who kept many a Confederate bigwig happy during the Civil War's darkest days. The diary, conservatively valued at $150,000, has been hotly pursued by everyone from university libraries to a lunatic Civil War buff. Littlefield is convinced that the diary's theft had something to do with the murder of the girl and he hires Callahan to find the book and, perhaps, the truth. As her search progresses, Callahan takes us on a rollicking tour of the New South, from the woolly world of Civil War reenactments to Rebel Yell Press (whose offices look like a cross between Tara and a Chevy dealership), from a carpetbagger's castle to an inner-city shotgun shack. Along the way, Callahan gets chilling glimpses of her landscape's underside: shady sexual doings at the slain girl's prim Catholic high school, a suave neighbor whose feud with Littlefield borders on psychosis, and the fact that Littlefield killed another girl two decades ago. At the center of all this is Callahan herself, bickering with her irascible mother, Edna, trying to keep a lid on the splendidly evoked eccentrics in her employ, taking a highly experimental anti-cancer drug, weighing the pros and cons of moving in with her beau, and narrowly dodging threats on her life. Nobody knows more about life and death in Dixie than Callahan Garrity and her story - wry, taut, and richly detailed - makes for addictive reading.
FROM THE CRITICS
BookList - Martin Brady
It's talky, contrived, and too long--but that doesn't mean that this mystery, modeled somewhat after the infinitely better Kinsey Millhone books by Sue Grafton, won't appeal to a solid core of readers. Trocheck's second whodunit starring Callahan Garrity, ex-cop turned cleaning-service entrepreneur cum private detective, finds her heroine involved in the recovery of stolen Civil War collectibles, the murder of a teenage girl, and some dirty dealings by a supposedly benevolent, not-for-profit group finding creative ways to house the homeless. The Atlanta setting, while not artfully rendered, certainly rings true enough, and Trocheck keeps the suspects in and out of the limelight effectively until the real culprits are brought to justice. The novel suffers a bit from stereotyping: every man in the book (save for Callahan's vaguely liberated main squeeze, Mac) is a bit of a jerk, and every women who's not in Callahan's coterie of plucky house cleaners is a bit of a bimbette or just plain pathetic. Callahan's crusty old mom, Edna, does, however, try to keep the proceedings in the proper perspective with her sardonic wit. Not the best but certainly not the worst in the ever-burgeoning ranks of mystery series with female sleuths.
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