Trocheck, Kathy Hogan

To Live & Die in Dixie (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

From her time on the Atlanta police force, Callahan Garrity, house cleaner and private investigator extraordinaire, has excelled at mopping up messes -- of all kinds. But she has no idea what she's getting into when she agrees to work for infamous antiques dealer Elliot Littlefield.

The first day on the job she and her crew discover the bloodied body of a young woman in a bedroom -- and are soon on the trail of a priceless Civil War diary stolen by the killer. As if two crimes aren't enough, deadly serious collectors, right-wing radicals, and impulsive teenagers make the case even more difficult to tidy up ... and more dangerous.

Midnight Clear: A Callahan Garrity Mystery (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

Christmas festivities and family bonding provide the backdrop in this seventh mystery featuring cleaning service owner-operator Callahan Garrity. While Callahan and her mother Edna are busy preparing trifle and a potent Garrity version of eggnog for their annual Christmas bash, Callahan's youngest brother, Brian, appears after a 10-year absence. Edna is thrilled, both with Brian and with the granddaughter he has presented; Callahan is more dubious, particularly when it becomes clear that her brother has been in town for well over a year and that he has taken the 3-year-old Maura without her mother's permission. Callahan, with pressure from Edna, agrees to help Brian fight the custody battle against his ex, but things only get more complicated once the woman is found stabbed to death. Police, not surprisingly, put Brian at the top of their list of likely suspects. After all, if he is willing to commit one felony by kidnapping his daughter, what's to prevent him from murdering her mother?

Despite overtones of O.J.--Brian is also accused of occasionally resorting to violence--there is much to enjoy here: Edna's toilet-training philosophy, Maura's precociousness, and the suburban South's peculiar social dimensions (just what constitutes white trash, anyway?) provide much to chuckle over. Callahan and her band of merry mop-bearers take on the police, Brian's mother-in-law, and even Brian himself to demonstrate his innocence so that he can stay out of jail and secure custody. Callahan is an admirable and entertaining heroine. Kathy Hogan Trocheck has a lighter touch than Sarah Paretsky or Sue Grafton, and Callahan is rarely as unforgivably foolhardy as counterparts V.I. Warshawski or Kinsey Milhone can be. With Callahan and her more charming relations at the novel's heart, Midnight Clear offers jolly holiday reading with both poignant and hilarious moments. --K. Crouch

Ex-Atlanta cop-turned-house-cleaning entrepreneur Callahan Garrity doesn't know what she is getting for Christmas, but she never expects the gift that arrives at her door: her estranged, ne'er-do-well brother, Brian, and his adorable three-year-old daughter, Maura. A rebel who's been in and out of trouble most of his life, Brian's deep in it now since he illegally abducted Maura from under the nose of his shrewish former wife.

When the beautiful child's mother is found murdered, the police come looking for Brian. And now, to save her brother and her holiday, Callahan -- along with her irascible mom, Edna, and a gaggle of House Mouse employees -- must uncover the truth and a killer, even if it means digging around the roots of her own family tree and exposing the rot underneath.

Every Crooked Nanny (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

After ten years of cleaning up the dirt on Atlanta's streets, Callahan Garrity is trading in her badge for a broom and a staff of house cleaners. But, though the uniform is a little different, Callahan soon finds herself right back in the middle of a mystery when a client's pretty, pious nineteen-year-old nanny is gone ... along with the jewelry, silver, and a few rather sensitive real estate documents.

Before she knows it, the meticulous Callahan is up to her elbows in a case involving illicit love triangles, crooked business deals, long-distance scams, and a dead body. Now she has to roll up her sleeves and start some industrial strength sleuthing to solve -- and survive -- this mess.

Homemade Sin (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

With a nose for crime and grime, Callahan Garrity has handled dirty killers on the streets as an Atlanta cop and on the job as a house cleaner. But she's always been able to keep her private life neatly separated from work -- until her cousin, Patti, is found dead. Exchanging her House Mouse cleaning uniform for a detective's cap, Callahan is hellbent to find the culprit. It's notthat she doesn't trust the Atlanta PD. She just knows that her suburbanite cousin's death is too strange to be accidental.

Callahan's search takes her on a convoluted trail from Patti's priest, who may have provided more than spiritual counsel, through Atlanta's inner city and into the shady deals of her cousin's newly prosperous husband. Yet, as the pieces start to fall into place, Callahan faces an even bigger challenge -- staying alive.

Irish Eyes: A Callahan Garrity Mystery (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

Ex-cop Callahan Garrity was more than happy to leave the Atlanta P.D. behind her to start her own business -- the House Mouse cleaning service -- and to indulge in a bit of freelance private investigation on the side. However, she owes too much to her former partner, Bucky Deavers, to refuse his request that she accompany him to the department's annual St. Patrick's Day bash. But the celebrating ends abruptly -- and badly -- when Bucky is shot during an apparent liquor store robbery while they're on the way home.

Callahan is devastated -- and the talk that perhaps Bucky was "dirty" only intensifies her pain. Now, with the help of her feisty "Mice," she's determined to find the culprit and clear her friend's name, even if it means piercing the veil of secrecy surrounding an Irish fraternal police organization that might be brewing up something far more lethally potent than green beer.

Heart Trouble

Former cop, currently co-owner of the House Mouse housecleaning service, and freelance p.i., Callahan Garrity raises eyebrows when she accepts an assignment from the most hated woman in Atlanta -- a wealthy white socialite who killed a young black girl in a drunken hit-and-run and was punished with no more than a slap on the wrist. Even Callahan's "Mice" are grumbling.

But when a roadside murder turns up the heat on the racial tensions that have been simmering dangerously since Whitney Albright Dobbs received her laughably light sentence, Callahan realizes she'll have to pull out all the stops to trap a mean, mad killer -- for the sake of justice and a city that's threatening to explode.

Strange Brew (Callahan Garrity Mysteries)

The winds of change are blowing, bringing gentrification to Callahan Garrity's funky Atlanta neighborhood. Though it probably won't harm her House Mouse housecleaning service, not everyone welcomes the rebirth. And when the body of a murdered microbrewer is discovered in the aftermath of a furious Halloween gale, suspicion falls on the aging "flower child" shopkeeper whom the victim put out of business.

A former cop, Callahan isn't as quick to condemn a colorful local character as some law officers still on the force. But her investigative zeal is stirring up secrets that are forcing her to reassess old friendships and a one-time love -- and is brewing up more lethal trouble than Callahan and her "mice" can safely swallow.

Happy Never After : A Callahan Garrity Mystery

Since retiring from the Atlanta Police Department, Callahan Garrity is really cleaning up with her House Mouse housecleaning company -- especially since she added"crime investigation" to the list of services offered.

Callahan agrees to locate the missing member of the popular '60s girl group, the VelvetTeens, and she doesn't have to search long. Deloras Carter, the a.w.o.l. singer, is found passed out drunk by a swimming pool near the dead body of the trio's former producer. The smoking gun in Deloras's hand suggests that the VelvetTeens won't be reuniting for a comeback tour anytime in the near future ... unless Callahan and her "Mice" can spotlight -- and survive -- a different killer act.

Lickety-Split

Carolyn G. Hart presents Malice Domestic (4)