Romance overshadows the crime solving in Ramirez’s saucy second mystery to feature Sacramento, Calif., PI Lola Cruz (after 2009’s Living the Vida Loca
). Lola returns home one evening to find all the members of her close-knit Mexican-American family overjoyed to see her alive. A little earlier, they heard on the news that her body was discovered in an alley behind the Florin Mall. The victim, who suffered a fatal head blow, turns out to be an identity thief, Rosie Gonzales. Lola and her Sacramento Bee
journalist boyfriend, Jack Callaghan, learn that Rosie posed as Lola for six months and had even enrolled in Lola’s alma mater, Sacramento State. Rosie also left behind a missing child Lola’s determined to locate. Also disturbing is a possible link to Lola’s slimy ex-boyfriend, Sergio Garcia. Ramirez insightfully explores one of today’s more pervasive crimes, identity theft, but hopefully she’ll beef up the action in the next installment. Author tour.
(Feb.)
