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Overview
Private Investigator Cat DeLuca and her Pants on Fire Detective Agency have a reputation for catching cheaters. It’s a skill Cat mastered when married to her run-around ex, Johnnie Ricco. Armed with a camera, Cat scales balconies, dangles from hotel windows, and splashes the bare facts on 8X10 glossies. They tend to sweeten her clients’ divorce settlements.
Life takes a strange turn when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Rita Polansky) masquerades as a client with a liar-liar husband. Rita retains Cat to follow Chance Savino, a steamy guy with a pocketful of smuggled diamonds. The detective is hot on his heels when an exploding building hurls her out of her sling-backs and into the hospital. The FBI claims Savino was killed in the fireworks but Cat isn’t buying it. She escapes the hospital determined to find out.
When her client fails to show for a scheduled meeting, Cat finds her at home with a knife in her chest. She learns the reporter was researching a ball-buster story involving a gangster, gun smuggling, and a pocketful of diamonds. Cat discovers two clues in Rita’s apartment; Starburst candy wrappers and Chance Savino rummaging through her drawers.
Meanwhile, no one believes Chance is alive, everyone thinks Cat’s crazy, and Cat makes a murderer’s “must kill” list. A botched attempt puts ex husband, Johnnie Ricco on the short list of suspects. Can Cat solve this case before it is too late?
Synopsis
Private Investigator Cat DeLuca and her Pants on Fire Detective Agency have a reputation for catching cheaters. It’s a skill Cat mastered when married to her run-around ex, Johnnie Ricco. Life takes a strange turn when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Rita Polansky) masquerades as a client with a liar-liar husband. Rita retains Cat to follow Chance Savino, a steamy guy with a pocketful of smuggled diamonds. Can Cat solve the case before she becomes the next victim?
Library Journal
Getting the goods on straying husbands is what Cat DeLuca, owner of Chicago's Pants on Fire Detective Agency: We Catch Liars and Cheats, does for a living. In her new case, Cat tails Chance Savino around town, but strange things start to happen—exploding cars and a murder or two. Then her cop family, led by her micromanaging mother, gets into the act. That's when the real fun begins. VERDICT Packed with action and wonderfully funny characters, this series debut is a masterstroke of hilarity. Cat De Luca is smart and charming in a scorned-woman-turned-to-avenging-all-cheated-upon-women way and is sure to appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.
Editorials
Library Journal
Getting the goods on straying husbands is what Cat DeLuca, owner of Chicago's Pants on Fire Detective Agency: We Catch Liars and Cheats, does for a living. In her new case, Cat tails Chance Savino around town, but strange things start to happen—exploding cars and a murder or two. Then her cop family, led by her micromanaging mother, gets into the act. That's when the real fun begins. VERDICT Packed with action and wonderfully funny characters, this series debut is a masterstroke of hilarity. Cat De Luca is smart and charming in a scorned-woman-turned-to-avenging-all-cheated-upon-women way and is sure to appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.Kirkus Reviews
A private eye searches for a suspect while her mother tries to find her a man.
If Caterina "Cat" DeLuca learned one thing in her divorce, it's how to catch a cheater. Now older and wiser, Cat has her own agency, Pants on Fire, that aims to catch other trespassing spouses. When yet another teary wife shows up in Cat's office, she has no qualms about taking the case. Little does she suspect that the woman, Rita Polansky, may have something entirely different on her mind than her cheating husband. Cat is following said hunky husband, Chance Savino, into a building when both are victims of a bomb attack the FBI maintains was really a gas leak. Cat winds up in the hospital with a concussion, putting her mental state into question and forcing a sanity intervention from her family and Father Timothy. Unfortunately, this is just another roadblock in a case that she considers barely open, since she can't find Chance's body in the wreckage or at the morgue. The FBI insists that he's dead, but Cat keeps (deliciously) running into him lurking in the corners as she continues her investigation of the bomb. At least Cat's family is on her side, or what they consider her side. Her mother cooks up a storm, her brother Rocco all but moves into her house and her Uncle Joey intimates that his mob connections are at her service.
Fans of Jennifer Crusie will appreciate Larsen's debut, full of breezy comebacks and characters that come off the page.