Poppy Harmon and the Backstabbing Bachelor (Desert Flowers Mystery #4) by Lee Hollis #bookreview #mystery
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Title: Poppy Harmon and the Backstabbing Bachelor
Author: Lee Hollis
Publisher: Kensington Cozies
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Page Count: 268
My rating: 4 stars
About the book:
Private Investigator Poppy Harmon can see through the charms of Southern California’s trickiest criminals. But when she and the Desert Flowers Detective Agency go up against a dashing dating show murderer, they may have finally met their match!
While sidekick Matt Flowers shoots a film abroad, Poppy dusts off her own acting chops to break up a Gen Z crime ring targeting seniors in Palm Springs. Tanya Cook and her gal pals have been swindling susceptible residents for all they’re worth—until the gang meets Poppy undercover. Yet with the case cracked, the desert heat is on full blast as new terrors take the lead . . .
Poppy’s already sweating over a menacing mystery stalker when a shocking death proves she’s in serious danger. As suspicions fall once again on Tanya, finding answers may mean pulling off the most challenging performance of her career . . .
Now, with Poppy’s unknown stalker rumored to be posing as one of several bachelors on a glitzy reality series, a disguised Poppy must reveal his true identity on set before he realizes hers. Does Poppy have what it takes to catch the cold‑blooded killer in time for the season finale . . . or should she start planning for her funeral?
Poppy Harmon and the Backstabbing Bachelor by Lee Hollis is the fourth book in the cozy A Desert Flowers Mystery series. As with most cozy mysteries each book of this series contains it’s own mystery that is fully solved within the book so they could be read as a standalone if choosing to do so. There is however some character building that carries over book to book for those that follow the series from the beginning.
In the first book of the series readers were introduced to Poppy Harman who is a sixty something retired actress who thought she was going to be living out the rest of her life comfortably with her husband. However, after Poppy’s husband passed away quite suddenly she found out that her rather comfortable life was all a lie and that her husband had gambled away their last cent.
When Poppy sat down with her two best friends, Iris and Violet, trying to brainstorm ideas to earn money with no real experience other than acting the trio came up with the idea that Poppy has rather remarkable investigative skills so why not become a detective? With a bit of effort the Desert Flowers Detective Agency was opened with Iris and Violet coming in to assist.
Things weren’t going so well with the new business when it seemed no one wanted to hire three “older” ladies so Poppy got a plan to use her daughter’s boyfriend, an actor, to be the face of the firm. Now that the ladies are up and running and have a few solved cases under their belt it’s time to dust off Poppy’s own acting talent while Matt is away. Poppy used her acting skills to quickly solve a case of seniors being taken advantage of and being robbed to only find Poppy needs her acting yet again when a stalker is undercover as a dating show contestant.
The Desert Flowers Mystery series is one that I have been following from the beginning and have compared this one to turning the Golden Girls into detectives. The books have an extremely humorous vibe with quirky fun characters just like the sitcom did and that is what I enjoy in my cozy mysteries so of course I love coming back to the series time and time again. Along with the quirky characters and fun vibes there’s also an engaging mystery in each book so I will continue to follow this series in the future!
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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