Death and the Motherlode

You can contact the AUTHOR at hzhutchins2@gmail.com.

Paulette Goddard lives in a world of contradictions. For example, Paulette is a feisty, size 24, smart mouth, while her best friend and gal pal is a blond bombshell who goes home at the end of the day with what P calls the "dude du jour."

Her mother's second husband, Olaf Lampsen, whom Paulette refers to as "The Swede", is a lackluster specimen she calls "cream of wheat without strawberries for flavor." The couple coos over their Basenji hound, Otto, as if he's a genius stepchild instead of their four-legged beastie.

And, most annoyingly, her fledgling relationship with gorgeous co-worker, Jimmy Dolan, is in jeopardy because Lt. Karl Karlson-whom Paulette bested in their first murder investigation-thinks Jimmy killed their haughty co-worker, Deborah Alston, AKA "The Princess."

While Paulette and The Princess recently argued, Paulette didn't do the deed. "I'm judgmental, not homicidal," she says. And although Paulette is sure Jimmy didn't do it either, she jumps in to solve the case and prove Karlson wrong...again.

In the process, Paulette has to fend off the advances of her one-night-stand addicted boss and brush off the help of her best friend, Claudie, who keeps pushing to be her crime-fighting sidekick.

Paulette is also doing her best to ignore the advice of her former college professor, HAT, who fancies himself the Mycroft Holmes of the cornfields.

As she tracks down clues from her basement office next to the bathrooms at the brokerage firm where she works, Paulette encounters harsh words from her Miss Marple-ish office manager, threatening notes from someone who knows where she lives, and the business end of a butcher knife.

In the end, Paulette's girth saves her from death but not humiliation as she tries to kindle romance with her already-married boyfriend, salvage her full-time job when her boss is arrested based on Paulette's ace research, and smoke out the killer.