Perish by Pedicure: A Bad Hair Day Mystery

Cohen's disjointed eighth cozy (after 2005's Dead Roots ) featuring salon owner Marla Shore finds the amateur sleuth fixing more than just hair at a Fort Lauderdale beauty show. When Christine Parks, Luxor's beauty products director, is discovered dead in her hotel room, Marla's friend Georgia Rogers, a Luxor sales rep who was the last person to see Christine alive, becomes the chief suspect. With no shortage of people who might have wanted Christine dead, Marla investigates an artistic director, a stylist and another sales rep, putting her own life in peril in the process. Though Cohen rewards the reader with a surprising conclusion, her abrupt shifts between Marla's suspenseful investigative efforts and her personal difficulties with the former in-laws of her widowed fiancé Det. Dalton Vail make for a bumpy ride. (Dec.)