Heads You Lose

With a flip of the coin, Lacey becomes the unlucky Hansen sibling taking out the garbage. Finding the headless body? That makes a dirty job even worse. Paul, Lacey's brother, doesn't care where the head went or who might have left the body in their yard. He wants to keep the police away from their home, site of their modest but still illegal pot-growing business. Mercer, CA, is a small town, but the list of possible victims and perpetrators is long and grows longer as the (heads attached) body count rises. Two original, quirky stories packed into one book? What an awesome bonus for fans of Lutz's Spellman series (). One story line tells how Lutz and her ex-boyfriend began writing this novel in alternating chapters, even though they've had a rocky personal relationship over the years. The other is the murder mystery, and readers clearly see how rising tensions between the authors affect their writing. Clever, witty, and smartly turned out, this novel should be savored from the editor's letter to the final page, or readers will lose out on a big piece of this humorous puzzle. [See Prepub Alert, 10/25/10.]—Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH

Lutz, who gave us the insanely funny and popular Spellman series, launches a new one starring an offbeat brother-and-sister team who seem to work harder at battling each other than they do at solving a murder. No, Lutz still can't stay away from the whole family thing. Coauthor Hayward isn't family, though he and Lutz used to date, which evidently colors those fight scenes. With an eight-city tour; there should be lots of interest in this one.