Book excerpt: BIMBOS, BUSTIERS, AND BOTOX! MURDER MOST FASHIONABLE... Author Elaine Viets kicks off this funny and fresh cozy series—about a woman on the run from her ex—with a rollicking tale of crime and vanity in the shadow world of wannabe molls. When unlikely sleuth Helen Hawthorne flees St. Louis, she fetches up in Fort Lauderdale, suddenly surrounded by the beautiful and the Botoxed. They all shop at the same place—Juliana’s, the overpriced boutique where Helen works. And they’re all looking for a wealthy wise guy to take to the cleaners. It’s a dead-end job with no perks—but one that pays in cash. A little shady, but it beats leaving a paper trail. Turns out shady’s only the beginning. Juliana’s holds more secrets than a confessional, beginning with theft and drug sales, progressing to ever more ambitious scams, and inevitably, given the escalating level of crime, the murder of a felonious fashionista. The good news is there’s a reward—and Helen needs money. The bad is that she could die before she collects it. Readers will find Helen the perfect cozy protagonist—an ordinary woman squeezed by circumstance, feeling her way as she takes control of her life whatever way she has to do it, innocent yet growing savvier by the second. You root hard for her as she settles into the role of amateur detective because you just can’t help identifying with her and hoping you’d rise to the occasion as well. And you’ll laugh out loud at the sly way author Viets skewers the South Florida culture of vanity and money. Fans of everywoman heroines like those created by Joanna Campbell Slan, Donna Andrews, Joanne Fluke, CeeCee James, Jana DeLeon, and Janet Evanovich will fall in love with this plucky investigator. And they can settle in for a long and beautiful relationship. The best news is the series is fifteen books strong, and counting!