Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

When Jack Roberts walks into the James & James Detective Agency, co-owner Alice James can hardly believe her luck. The body of Roberts’s daughter, Laura, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress, was found just days before, bashed over the head and set ablaze in the Nevada desert. It is a horrific crime — and cracking it could mean big business for James & James. It’s a fledgling outfit, after all, formed by the oddest of crime-fighting couples: Jim Snow is a forty-something former Las Vegas homicide detective who quit the force to become a full-time poker player, and Alice James is a model-turned-cocktail waitress whose foray into casino security landed her in law enforcement. Together they are a force to be reckoned with…as long as Snow’s midlife crisis and their simmering chemistry don’t derail the case. There’s no shortage of suspects to keep them busy; everyone, from the victim’s obsessive ex-boyfriend, her mentally unbalanced tenant, her temperamental roommate, her shady fiancé, and even her volatile father, is under suspicion. But can the partners do what the police couldn’t: solve the case quickly to please the client without compromising the truth? Witty, smart, and immensely entertaining, Ashes to Dust is a satisfying whodunit sure to please even the most hard-boiled of mystery fans.