Come Hell or Highball
A Mystery
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3.9 • 9 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
31-year-old society matron Lola Woodby has survived her loveless marriage with an unholy mixture of highballs, detective novels, and chocolate layer cake, until, her husband dies suddenly, leaving her his fortune...or so Lola thought. As it turns out, all she inherits from Alfie is a big pile of debt. Pretty soon, Lola and her stalwart Swedish cook, Berta, are reduced to hiding out in the secret love nest Alfie kept in New York City. But when rent comes due, Lola and Berta have no choice but to accept an offer made by one of Alfie's girls-on-the-side: in exchange for a handsome sum of money, the girl wants Lola to retrieve a mysterious reel of film for her. It sounds like an easy enough way to earn the rent money. But Lola and Berta realize they're in way over their heads when, before they can retrieve it, the man currently in possession of the film reel is murdered, and the reel disappears. On a quest to retrieve the reel and solve the murder before the killer comes after them next, Lola and Berta find themselves navigating one wacky situation after another in high style and low company.
Charming, witty, often laugh-out-loud funny, Maia Chance's Come Hell or Highball is the first in the Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries and introduces a sparkling new voice in crime fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chance's flawless first in a 1920s cozy series introduces New York socialite Lola Woodby, who sheds no tears over the sudden death of her philandering, debt-ridden hubby, Alfie. A shortage of funds forces Lola and her cook, Berta Lundgren, to move into Alfie's last remaining piece of real estate, a Greenwich Village apartment that he used as a love nest. When one of Alfie's former girlfriends, aspiring movie actress Ruth Simpkin, offers to pay Lola $3,000 for retrieving a canister of film from a country house where Lola will be a guest, the hard-up Lola and Berta accept, though Ruth is rather vague about the film's content. Lola and Berta's subsequent adventures thrust them into high and low society, and Lola winds up as a suspect in more than one murder. Chance (Snow White Red-Handed) displays a deft wit throughout ("Society Matrons, if you're unfamiliar with the breed, groom and train to compete in matches more snappish and bitchy than those of the Westminster Kennel Club").
